Genetic variability, heritability and genetic advance for growth, yield and yield related traits in maize genotypes

Abstract

Evaluation of the genetic variability, heritability and genetic advance of traits is an essential task in any plant improvement program. Twenty maize genotypes were replicated twice in a randomized complete block design on a research plot of Prithu Technical College, Deukhuri Dang of Nepal from June 2017 to September 2017 to determine genetic variability, heritability, and genetic advance for different agronomic traits. Analysis of variance showed significant differences in the traits tassel length, ear height, days to fifty percent tasseling, days to fifty percent silking, kernels’ rows ear-1, kernels row-1 and grain yield. The highest GCV (31.53%) and PCV (39.20%) were recorded on grain yield. Grain yield and ear height recorded high heritability along with high genetic advance as a percent of mean (GAM). Tassel length and kernels row-1 showed high heritability integrated with moderate GAM and moderate heritability integrated with moderate GAM respectively. Further, grain yield showed a significant and positive correlation with plant height, tassel length, ear height, cob length, cob diameter, kernels’ rows ear-1, and kernels row-1. Thus the selection of ear height, tassel length and kernels row-1 is suggested as they performed better in terms of both heritability and GAM than other traits and they also recorded a significant and positive correlation with yield.

Evaluation of single cross maize hybrids during the spring season in Khairahani, Chitwan, Nepal

“…The study by Bartaula et al (2019), Buso et al (2019 found a positive and significant correlation between cob length and thousand-grain weight with grain yield. A similar result was obtained for cob length (Rai et al, 2021;Supraja et al, 2019) and thousand-grain weight (Kandel & Shrestha, 2020). The use of these traits to increase the grain production of the hybrid maize is suggested by the positive and significant correlation between grain yield to cob length and thousand-grain weight (Kandel & Shrestha, 2020).…”

“…So, breeders must be careful while breeding these complex traits. Low heritability was observed for cob length (Rai et al, 2021). This represents the greater effect of the environment on the expression of these traits (Rai et al, 2021).…”

“…The presence of substantial variation among the hybrids under study is indicated by significant variances in attributes for single cross maize hybrids, which can be used to improve the genetics of the crop through selection and hybridization (Belay, 2018). Rai et al (2021), Raut et al (2017) obtained significant results for days to fifty percent anthesis and silking, ear height, number of rows per ear, number of grains per row, and grain yield. A similar result was reported for ear height, number of rows per ear, number of grains per row, and grain yield (Bartaula et al, 2019;Ghimire, 2017)and for days to fifty percent anthesis grain yield by Kafle et al (2020).…”

“…High heritability in broad sense estimate was recorded for days to fifty percent silking, days to fifty percent anthesis (Ullah et al, 2017) and grain yield (Neupane et al, 2020;Rai et al, 2021). Similarly, high heritability for thousand-grain weight, number of grains per row, anthesis-silking interval, plant height (Neupane et al, 2020), number of rows per ear, and ear height (Bartaula et al, 2019;Rai et al, 2021) was recorded, which shows the effect of the environment to the expression of these traits is low (Belay, 2018;Neupane et al, 2020;Sravanti et al, 2017) and improvement of the traits can be made based on phenotypic performance (Belay, 2018) and there might be a better correlation between breeding values and phenotypic traits (Sravanti et al, 2017). So, these traits have greater scope for genetic improvement through selection (Bartaula et al, 2019;Sravanti et al, 2017).…”

Genetic Variability and Inter-relationship among Grain Yield and It’s Components in Maize (Zea mays L.)

“…1). Similar outputs were given by Rai et al [9] for grain yield per plant, harvest index and Beulah et al [10] for number of grains per row, number of grain rows per cob and Magar et al [11] for cob weight, ear height, biological yield per plant.…”