STUDIES ON COMBINING ABILITY FOR YIELD AND YIELD COMPONENTS IN MAIZE (ZEA MAYS L.)
B. V. VARAPRASAD AND D. SHIVANI
Agricultural Research Station, Madhira (Telangana), India
Professor Jayashankar Telangana
State Agricultural University
(e-mail : rishith_sree@rediffmail.com)
(Received : 22 September 2015; Accepted : 05 December 2015)
SUMMARY
The experiment was carried out involving a set of 60 crosses along with 19 parents and three checks for estimating combining ability variances and effects for yield and its attributing traits at Agricultural Research Station, Madhira, Telangana during rabi 2012-13.The differences among the parents, parents vs. hybrids and hybrids were observed to be significant for all the characters studied sca variances were higher than gca variances indicating the predominance of non-additive gene action. The parents, MRC 1112, MRC 1123, MRC 1176, MRC 1604 and BML 13 recorded positive significant gca effects, while MRC 1176 x BML 7, MRC 1179 x BML 13, MRC 1358 x BML 13, MRC 1556 x BML 13, MRC 1561 x BML 5 and MRC 1604 x BML 7 were good crosses for ear length. The parents MRC 1123, MRC 1271, MRC 1604 and BML 13 exhibited significant positive gca effects indicating that they were good general combiners for 100-seed. For grain yield, MRC 1123, MRC 1604 and BML 13 recorded significant positive gca effects and could be utilized in the development of hybrids, synthetics and composites.
Key words:Maize, combining ability, gca, sca