Abstract
Blue maize (Zea mays L.) is grown for its high content of antioxidants. Conversion of yellow and white to blue maize is time consuming because several genes affect blue color. After each backcross selfing is needed for color to be expressed. In order to overcome the problem of time and effort needed for conversion to blue kernel color, we have set a pilot experiment simulating a Top-cross system for increasing antioxidants in maize grain. The idea is to alternately sow six rows of sterile standard quality hybrid and two rows of blue maize in commercial production. Five commercial ZP hybrids were crossed with a blue pop-corn population. Xenia effect caused by cross-pollination produced blue grain on all hybrids in the same year. Chemical analyses of the grains of five selfed original hybrids, five cross-pollinated hybrids and selfed blue popcorn pollinator were performed. Cross-fertilization with blue popcorn had different impact on antioxidant capacity and phytonutrients, increasing them significantly in some but not all cross-pollinated hybrids. Popcorn blue pollinator had higher values for all the analyzed traits than either selfed or cross-pollinated hybrids. Selfed vs. pollinated hybrids showed significant difference for total antioxidant capacity (p<0.1), total phenolics and total yellow pigments (p<0.01), with the increase of total phenolics and decrease of total yellow pigments in pollinated ones. Total flavonoids showed a little non-significant decrease in pollinated hybrids, while total anthocyanins were not detected in selfed yellow hybrids. Blue maize obtained this way has shown good potential for growing high quality phytonutrient genotypes.
Highlights
Maize (Zea mays L.) can have different grain colors such as black, blue, red, orange, yellow, white and brown
Pollinated sterile hybrids produced kernels with different intensity of blue color, indicating the influence of genetic constitution of mother hybrid on the intensity of blue color induced by xenia effect when crossed with dark blue kernel pollinator
A mixture of the same number of kernels from each class of coloration per each mother hybrid was sampled for the chemical analysis, in order to represent an average sample that could be obtained in practice
Summary
Maize (Zea mays L.) can have different grain colors such as black, blue, red, orange, yellow, white and brown. Anthocyanins, probably the most important group of visible plant pigments besides chlorophyll, are presented in blue, purple and black colored maize grains. Main anthocyanins in these grains are cyanidin glycosides (Pascual-Teresa et al, 2002; EscribanoBailón et al, 2004; Del Pozo-Insfran et al, 2006) that account for 70% of the anthocyanins (Aoki et al, 2000). Anthocyanins, as well as other polyphenols and phenolic acids are thought to be non-nutritive, but interest in them has increased due to health benefits and nutraceutical effects (Setchell & Aedin, 1999) Consumption of these matters is in opposite relationship with the incidence of various
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