Abstract
Low soil nitrogen (Low N) is one of the major abiotic stresses causing maize yield reduction in tropics of Africa. However, genetic variation observed under low N and crossing among adaptive/NUE elite lines should be targeted for different secondary traits, economic disease and inheritance studies breeding for Low N in maize. In addition, breeding for Low N and drought have common traits indicating that common adaptive mechanism and thus, appear to develop maize genotypes that tolerance to stress and such maize genotypes exhibited high yield performance under low and high N condition across environments, is likely good for subsistence farmers in Africa for maize production. Multiple QTLs detected under Low N and high-nitrogen conditions for grain yield per plant, secondary and physiological traits. However, a direct use of these detected QTLs has been less achieved breeding for Low N tolerance in maize program, because of eQTLs. Thus, stable QTLs should be validated and fine mapping or GWAS method should detect the candidate genes for controlling NUE for low soil nitrogen in maize. Keyword : Low N, secondary traits, genotypes, NUE, QTLs DOI: 10.7176/JNSR/12-1-04 Publication date: January 31 st 2021
Highlights
Maize (Zea mays L.) is a worldwide important stale crop for food, feed and industry
Evaluation of maize germplasm under Low N tolerance It is obvious that an experimental site for Low N depleted by continuous planting of heavy feeder crop like sorghum until the leaves showed typical N deficiency symptoms or Low N site could be depleted by growing unfertilized, non-leguminous crops for several seasons
Studies reported that some maize genotypes showed a good performance under Low N and drought stress condition, this might be both have common adaptive mechanism and some traits contributed under both stress
Summary
Despite the importance of maize as a principal food crop in developing country, its average yield in Africa (2.02 t ha-1) is still low as compared to the world average (5.57 t ha-1) (FAO,2017). A significant portion of this yield gap is attributable to biotic and abiotic stresses. Among abiotic factors such as drought and low levels of soil nitrogen (low N) are the most important maize production constraints in tropics of Africa. Nitrogen deficiency can cause several adverse effects on maize growth, development and final yield. Annual grain yield losses estimate range between 10 to 50 % due to Low N stress in soil of tropic (Noelle et al, 2017). Even the damage is high if N stress occurs just before flowering when the physiological process determine yield
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary Sign-in/Register to access full text options 
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a callDisclaimer: All third-party content on this website/platform is and will remain the property of their respective owners and is provided on "as is" basis without any warranties, express or implied. Use of third-party content does not indicate any affiliation, sponsorship with or endorsement by them. Any references to third-party content is to identify the corresponding services and shall be considered fair use under The CopyrightLaw.
