Abstract
Vitamin A deficiency, drought, low soil nitrogen (low‐N), and Striga hermonthica parasitism of maize (Zea mays L.) cause malnutrition and food insecurity in sub‐Saharan Africa. The objectives of this study were to determine combining abilities of extra‐early provitamin A (PVA) lines, classify them into heterotic groups (HGs), identify testers, and determine yield stability of hybrids under contrasting environments in two trials. In Trial 1, 190 F1 hybrids plus six checks were tested under Striga‐infested, drought, and stress‐free environments in Nigeria from 2015–2017. In Trial 2, 35 extra‐early yellow hybrids were evaluated under low‐N, Striga‐infested, and stress‐free environments in 2018. TZEEIOR 202 and TZEEIOR 205 had PVA concentrations of 23.98 and 22.56 μg g−1. TZEEIOR 197 × TZEEIOR 205 (20.1 μg g−1) and TZEEIOR 202 × TZEEIOR 205 (22.7 μg g−1) contained about double the PVA level of the commercial check, TZEEI 58 × TZEE‐Y Pop STR C5 (11.4 μg g−1). Both general (GCA) and specific (SCA) combining ability variances were significant for most agronomic traits, although GCA was larger than SCA effects, indicating GCA effects primarily controlled the inheritance of those traits. TZEEIOR 97 and TZEEIOR 197 were identified as inbred testers. TZEEIOR 197 × TZEEIOR 205 was identified as a single‐cross tester and the most stable and highest‐yielding hybrid across environments. TZEEIOR 202 and TZEEIOR 205 should be invaluable resources for breeding for high PVA. Provitamin A level was independent of hybrid yield potential, indicating that selection of superior hybrids with elevated PVA levels should be feasible.
Highlights
Malnourishment occurs among millions of people worldwide with the larger proportion being in developing countries, especially in Asia and Africa, sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) in particular (Jauhar, 2006)
The provitamin A (PVA) levels of inbred lines used in this study were significantly different, ranging from 7.88 μg g−1 for TZEEIOR 27 to 23.98 μg g−1 for TZEEIOR 202 (Table 1) with an overall mean of 10.91 μg g−1 and standard error of the mean of
The hybrids resulting from the crosses of the 20 inbred lines had significantly different PVA values with two of the hybrids, TZEEIOR 197 × TZEEIOR 205 (20.1 μg g−1) and TZEEIOR 202 × TZEEIOR 205 (22.7 μg g−1), having values much higher than the target of 15 μg g−1 proposed by HarvestPlus (Table 1)
Summary
Malnourishment occurs among millions of people worldwide with the larger proportion being in developing countries, especially in Asia and Africa, sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) in particular (Jauhar, 2006). According to Swaminathan (2012), in some “hunger hot spots” of the world where agriculture is the backbone of survival, as in SSA and South Asia, mainstreaming nutrition in agriculture programs is the most effective and low-cost method of eliminating malnutrition. During the past two decades, tremendous efforts have been made to improve the nutritional status of crops consumed in SSA, but the region still has the largest number of malnourished people in the world. The World Health Report of 2002 ranked malnutrition first among the top globally preventable health risks, with the dreaded HIV/AIDS ranking fourth, an indication that greater attention should be focused on improving nutrition to minimize the effect of preventable diseases. VAD impairs the functionality of the immune system, increases susceptibility to diseases, increases the chances of death from severe illnesses, and causes night or complete blindness (Sommer, 2008)
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