Preliminary data of chemical contents and thousand kernel weight in special and conventional maize

Abstract

The cultivation of specialty maize has an important role in the world agriculture. The food processors demand maize with increased yields and quality to improve product attributes. Some unique types such as blue corn are becoming increasingly popular in specialty food stores (Rooney and Serna-Saldivar, 2003). The analysis of maize grain yields is extremely important for both animal feeding and human nutrition, with the latter coming more and more to the foreground (Gy6ri et al., 2005). Some authors studied chemical composition in specialty colour maize (Dickerson, 2003; Kovdcs, 2000; B6di and Pep6, 2006). The most important characteristics of the yield components are the number of ears per plant and the thousand-kernel weight (Hegyi et al., 2005). The objective of this study was to determine (i) some chemical parameters of various special colour and conventional (yellow) maize, (ii) trends in the thousand kernel weight of their maize in our breeding program.