Standard Heterosis of the Selected Maize (Zea mays L.) Inbred Lines Hybrids for Grain Yield and Yield Component at Jimma, South West Oromia Region, Ethiopa

Abstract

The study was carried out at Jimma Agricultural Research Center during 2015 cropping season. The objective was to evaluate standard heterosis for grain yield and yield components in maize hybrids. Ten selected inbred lines were crossed in a half diallel following Griffing’s Model 1, Method4 and the resulting 45 F₁ hybrids (excluding parents) were evaluated with four commercial hybrid checks in 7x7 alpha lattice designs with three replication. For analysis of variance ear length, ear diameter, number of rows per ear, number of kernel rows per ear, number of grain per row, thousand grain weights and grain yield data were collected. The Statistical Analysis Systems (SAS) was used to analyze the data. Analysis of variance indicates highly significant (P ≤ 0.01) and significant (P ≤ 0.05) difference for all traits except for thousand grain weights. Among the crosses L6 x L7 (8.9%), L7 x L10 (10.7%), L2 x L9 (11.1%) and L7 x L9 (15.6%) t/ha exhibited the highest standard heterotic effects for grain yield over the best commercial check BH546. Therefore maize breeding program can engage in hybrid variety formation based on the information of inbred lines with high grain yield. However, hybrids with the highest grain yield than the best commercial check can advanced to multi-location trail for further study to be released, since this experimental study was carried out only at one location.

Keywords: Inbred line, Standard heterosis