Genetic Analysis For Grain Yield and Some of Its Components In Maize (Zea mays L.) In Diallel Cross Among Ten Pure Lines

Abstract

Half diallel cross among ten pure lines of maize (ZM47R, CA21R, ZM49R, G17, nbreed12, ZM5i. Th97Alla-K122, G105, G54 and Th97A132-13-X14) was done, and then parents, their crosses and commercial variety Drachma were planted in 21 July 2013 at the field of Field Crops Department (Center of Mosul University) using RCBDesign with three replications, to estimate effects of general and specific combining abilities for parents and crosses respectively and gene actin controlled the inheritance of characters, ear diameter and length, number of rows per ear, number of ears per plant, number of grains per ear, 100-grain weight and grain yield per plant. The results of analysis of variance showed that mean square of general and specific combining ability was significant for all studied characters, indicating the presence of additive and dominance gene effects controlling the inheritance of these characters. however, the importance of the variance components noted that dominance genetic effects was more pronounced for all characters. The pure lines ZM49R, G17, ZM5i and G105 characterized by significant desirable general combining ability effects and high mean performance for most characters. The two crosses (CA21R x Th97Alla-K122) and (G17 x G105) showed significant desirable specific combining ability effects for all characters, and at the same time they have high mean performance for these characters, followed by crosses (ZM47R x ZM49R), (ZM47R x Th97Alla-K122) and (ZM47R x ZM49R), the effect of each was desirable significant for six characters includes grain yield per plant, in addition to giving a good mean performance for these characters. The most crosses with desirable specific combining ability effect for grain yield per plant had significant heterosis as departure from commercial variety Drachma, and can take advantage of these crosses in the development of hybrid varieties of high productivity as well as to exploit the phenomenon of heterosis. Narrow sense heritability values ranged between 8.76% for grains yield per plant and 50.01% for number of rows per ear, ie, it was a medium for number of rows per ear and low for other characters.