Abstract
Maize (Zea maiz) is an important cereal crop grown on 48o N to 58o N with annual rain fall 250 mm to 5000 mm per year and having chromosome number 2n =2x=20. Like all cereal crops maize is also deficient in two essential amino acids tryptophan and lysine in maize grain, but some maize mutant identified in USA have higher tryptophan and lysine contents due to presence of opaque 2 gene. In the present study 50 maize inbred lines and 30 QPM hybrids were characterized for morphological and yield contributing traits. 50 inbred lines were screened for the presence of opaque 2 gene. Molecular characterization showed that all 50 genotypes were non QPM as two primes phi 57 and phi 112 confirmed by amplifying 169 bp in QPM and 161 in inbred lines whereas phi 112 amplified null fragments in QPM and 150 bp in all inbred lines. Analysis of variance, principal component and cluster analysis showed presence of wider diversity in maize inbred lines and QPM hybrids. There were highly significant differences present in inbred lines for all the parameters studied where as QPM hybrids were found to be non-significant for ear aspect, plant aspect, days to 50% silking, days to 50% tasseling and anthesis to silking interval. Correlation among different traits were also determined and it was found that plant height and ear height had highly significant positive correlation (0.483** and 0.423** respectively) with yield per plant, ear diameter and number of grains per row had significant positive correlation (0.303* and 0.556* respectively) with yield per plant in inbred lines whereas in QPM hybrids field weight was positively correlated (0.38*) with grain texture and negatively correlated (-0.778**) with plant aspect and ear aspect.
Highlights
According to FAO 794.6 million people are under nourished in the world and prevalence rate of malnourishment is about 10.9 percent [1]
Increasing rate of malnourishment due to shortage of quality foods leads to many efforts that are being made to overcome it through biofortification
Efforts are being made in Pakistan for the evaluation of genotypes for opaque 2 gene and various agro-morpho traits that contribute towards higher yielding
Summary
According to FAO 794.6 million people are under nourished in the world and prevalence rate of malnourishment is about 10.9 percent [1]. Out of 794.6 million people in the world 779.9 million malnourished people belong to developing countries with 511.7 million only in Asia including Pakistan and 14.7 million people are from developed countries. In world major source of food is from cereal crops including wheat, rice, maize, barley and millet etc. There are about dozen of cereal crops grown for food and feed but most important are wheat, rice and maize covering the 94% of world cereal production [2]. Cereals can provide approximately 50% protein and have potential to meet protein requirement up to 70% [3]. This 50% protein is not the balance protein as mostly all cereal crops are deficient in essential amino acids like lysine and tryptophan. Deficiency of lysine and tryptophan causes kwashicore disease in children which is characterized by growth failure, fatty liver, adema and irratibility [5]
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