Breeding Maize for Food and Nutritional Security

Abstract

Maize occupies an important position in the world economy, and serves as an important source of food and feed. Together with rice and wheat, it provides at least 30 percent of the food calories to more than 4.5 billion people in 94 developing countries. Maize production is constrained by a wide range of biotic and abiotic stresses that keep afflicting maize production and productivity causing serious yield losses which bring yield levels below the potential levels. New innovations and trends in the areas of genomics, bioinformatics, and phenomics are enabling breeders with innovative tools, resources and technologies to breed superior resilient cultivars having the ability to resist the vagaries of climate and insect pest attacks. Maize has high nutritional value but is deficient in two amino acids viz. Lysine and Tryptophan. The various micronutrients present in maize are not sufficient to meet the nutritive demands of consumers, however the development of maize hybrids and composites with modifying nutritive value have proven to be good to meet the demands of consumers. Quality protein maize (QPM) developed by breeders have higher concentrations of lysine and tryptophan as compared to normal maize. Genetic level improvement has resulted in significant genetic gain, leading to increase in maize yield mainly on farmer’s fields. Molecular tools when collaborated with conventional and traditional methodologies help in accelerating these improvement programs and are expected to enhance genetic gains and impact on marginal farmer’s field. Genomic tools enable genetic dissections of complex QTL traits and promote an understanding of the physiological basis of key agronomic and stress adaptive and resistance traits. Marker-aided selection and genome-wide selection schemes are being implemented to accelerate genetic gain relating to yield, resilience, and nutritional quality. Efforts are being done worldwide by plant breeders to develop hybrids and composites of maize with high nutritive value to feed the people in future.

Genetic diversity analysis and heterotic grouping of Indian white maize inbred lines using combining ability and SNP markers

“…Maize ( Zea mays L.) is popularly referred to as the queen of cereals for its highest genetic yield potential among all cereal crops and its versatile uses as food, feed, fodder, and raw material for a large number of industrial products (Lone et al., 2021). The majority of the maize grown in India is of yellow type that is being diverted to animal and poultry feed, contributing less to human consumption (Ranum et al., 2014).…”

Development of high-yielding white maize hybrids with better chapatti-making quality compared to traditionally used local landraces

“…Maize ( Zea mays L.) is one of the important cereal crops of the world being used as food, feed, fodder and raw material for a large number of industrial products ( 1 , 2 ). Based on endosperm colour maize can be broadly categorized into two widely grown types, viz.…”

Maize Breeding: From Domestication to Genomic Tools

“…The importance of corn for human health results from the fact that it is a food rich in nutrients [6][7][8], especially energy of 355 kcal per 100 g flour with 15% moisture, compared to 352 kcal for wheat flour, 348 kcal for rye flour, and 346 kcal Agronomy 2022, 12, 2365 2 of 17 for hulled barley [9]. As food, maize also has some shortcomings, of which we note the low amount of some essential amino acids, such as lysine and tryptophan [10,11]. Maize is also a valuable raw material for industry, extracting oil, starch, alcohol, glucose, and other products such as syrup, pectin, dextrin, plastics, lactic acid, acetic acid, acetone, dyes, and synthetic rubber from its grains.…”

“…Paper, cardboard, and nitrocellulose can be made from corn stalks [9]. Every part of the maize plant has economic worth, including the grain, leaves, stalk, tassel, and cob, which can be used to make a variety of food and non-food goods [11]. As a result, maize will become increasingly important in grain production around the world.…”