Synthesis and Evaluation of Maize (Zea mays L.) Accessions under Naturally Flooded Tidal-swamp Area

Abstract

Background: Synthesis and introduction of adaptive open-pollinated-maize accessions may help farmers at tidal-swamp to increase income, since farmers can produce the seeds directly from their plantation. Methods: This research utilized fields and farmers of such area located at South Sumatera, Indonesia. Evaluated plants consisted of Unsri-J1 to J8-accessions, generated from recurrent-selections of double-crossing populations between Indonesian varieties and introduced-accessions of high-quality protein maize (HQPSSS) from Purdue University and acid-soil tolerant accession maize (SA3) from CIMMYT. Evaluation was designed as Randomized Complete Block. Measurements were taken on five observation-plots consisted of 25 plants/plot. Statistical analysis was performed by using Analysis of Variance, followed by Fisher’s protected-LSD-test. Result: Research indicated that most accessions showed good performance. The plant-height ranged 200 to 228 cm and anthesis-period at 44 to 46 days after-planting. The half-sib seeds production ranged from 2.20 to 2.93 t/ha and the real-yield, at farmer level, ranged 5.5 to 7.7 t/ha and the potential-yield reached 7.6 to 9.6 t/ha with protein-content ranged from 8.57 to 9.48%. This research suggested that accessions of Unsri-J6, followed by Unsri-J7, J2, J5 and J1 were promising for further development.