Abstract
Availability of multiple-stress tolerant maize is critical for improvement in maize production in West and Central Africa (WCA). A study was carried out to (i) assess a set of inbred lines for combining ability under stressed and optimal conditions, (ii) determine the performance of the testcrosses under different conditions, and (iii) identify outstanding hybrids across the conditions. Two hundred and five testcrosses were planted with five hybrid checks under Striga-infested, low soil nitrogen, drought and optimal conditions between 2015 and 2016 in Nigeria. The grain yield inheritance under optimal condition was largely regulated by additive gene effect whereas non-additive gene effects largely regulated grain yield under the three stresses. Four of the inbreds had significant positive general combining ability effects each under low N and drought, and three under Striga infestation for grain yield. The inbreds could be vital sources of beneficial alleles for development and improvement of tropical yellow maize hybrids and populations. Hybrids TZEI 443 x ENT 13 and TZEI 462 x TZEI 10 were high yielding and stable; they out-performed the three early maturing released hybrids in WCA. The new hybrids should be extensively assessed and released in the sub-region to improve food security.
Highlights
About 30 million hectares of arable land in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) is devoted to maize (Zea mays L.) production[1]
Almost all the measured traits under low N and drought varied for general combining ability (GCA)-tester, GCA-line and specific combining ability (SCA) (Table 1), Striga-infested and optimal (Table 2) and across the environmental conditions (Table 3)
Significant mean squares of GCA-tester x E, GCA-line x E interactions were detected for almost all the traits in low N, drought (Table 1), Striga-infested and optimal (Table 2) and across the environmental conditions (Table 3)
Summary
About 30 million hectares of arable land in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) is devoted to maize (Zea mays L.) production[1]. Single-cross hybrids are produced from maize inbreds which are usually extracted from source populations, varieties or bi-parental crosses involving two inbred lines and possessing beneficial stress tolerance alleles after several generations of repeated self-pollination. The new inbred lines derived this way are crossed in hybrid combinations to produce stress tolerant/resistant hybrids which are usually higher yielding than the open pollinated varieties, source populations or bi-parental crosses from which they were developed. The need to assess the CA of new inbred lines that are extracted from different germplasm sources so that they could be effectively used for planning crosses to develop synthetic varieties and hybrids with good performance under distinct environmental conditions in WCA. The general aim of the study was to appraise newly developed yellow endosperm maize inbreds which have the ability to mature early under low soil N, drought, Striga-infested, optimal and across the four environmental conditions. The study was set up to (i) study the performance of early maturing hybrids across multiple-stress as well as optimal (absence of Striga, low soil N and drought) conditions and (ii) identify stable and high yielding hybrids across stress and optimal conditions
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