Abstract
Abstract Water deficit stress is the abiotic factor with the highest impact on crop yield. The objective of this study was to evaluate grain yield (GY), the anthesis-silking interval (ASI) and drought tolerance indices in maize hybrids. We evaluated GY and the ASI of 86 hybrids under two moisture levels (normal irrigation and water stress) for three consecutive years. The stress susceptibility index, water stress tolerance, drought resistance coefficient, drought resistance index, stress tolerance index and harmonic mean were evaluated. There were significant hybrid x environment interactions for GY and the ASI. Differences in the ASI among environments ranged from 0 to 5 days. The hybrids P3862, 1I873, 1I923, 1I862 and 1J1211 showed high GY, associated with the highest drought tolerance indices. The stress tolerance index and harmonic mean indices can be used to identify higher-yielding maize hybrids in environments with and without water restriction.
Highlights
Many different abiotic stresses affect and reduce the yield of the main cereal crops produced in the world
Identification and development of more drought-tolerant maize hybrids through plant breeding is an extremely important strategy with the aim of reducing yield losses in crops under water stress, and this has been adopted by several research institutions (Daryanto et al 2016)
The drought tolerance characteristic of crops is probably the most difficult to identify with great precision, since grain yield is a complex trait and is influenced by the genotype by environment interaction and other mechanisms associated with heterosis (Pereira 2016)
Summary
Many different abiotic stresses affect and reduce the yield of the main cereal crops produced in the world. Identification and development of more drought-tolerant maize hybrids through plant breeding is an extremely important strategy with the aim of reducing yield losses in crops under water stress, and this has been adopted by several research institutions (Daryanto et al 2016). Advances in plant breeding for drought tolerance have been achieved through association of conventional plant breeding and biomolecular techniques, with identification of quantitative trait loci (Zhao et al 2018) and genomic selection (Dias et al 2018). In the absence of precise information regarding the complete genetic mechanism of drought tolerance in maize, some secondary characteristics of the plant have been used as selection criteria, such as agronomic traits and molecular markers (Mikić et al 2016), morpho-physiological mechanisms (Wattoo et al 2018), and physiobiochemical indicators (Shafiq et al 2019)
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