Ecology, Environment and Conservation Paper

GENETIC VARIABILITY, HERITABILITY AND GENETIC ADVANCE STUDIES IN INBREDS OF MAIZE (ZEA MAYS L.)

S. Sandeep, M. Bharathi, V. Narsimha Reddy and K.B. Eswari

Abstract

The study was carried out at college farm, College of Agriculture, PJTSAU, Rajendranagar, Hyderabad during kharif, 2013 to determine genetic variability, heritability and genetic advance estimates in sixty inbreds lines of maize. Analysis of variance involving a set of 60 inbreds lines of maize for 12 quantitative characters viz., days to 50% tasseling, days to 50% silking, days to maturity, plant height, ear height, ear length, ear girth, number of kernel rows per ear, number of kernels per row, 100 seed weight, grain yield per plant and shelling percentage revealed highly significant mean sum of squares for all the characters indicating greater diversity among the genotypes. The genotypic coefficients of variation (GCV) for all the characters studied were lesser than the phenotypic coefficients of variation (PCV) indicating the effect of the environment. High GCV and PCV values were observed for grain yield per plant and ear height. The difference between the estimates of PCV and GCV were low for all the characters except shelling percentage thereby indicating that lesser role played by the environment in the expression of this character. The difference between the estimates of PCV and GCV was high for shelling percentage indicating the significant role played by the environment in the expression of these characters. All the characters showed high estimates of heritability except shelling percentage. High heritability coupled with high genetic advance as per cent of mean was observed for grain yield per plant, ear height, plant height, number of kernels per row, 100 seed weight and ear length indicating the role of additive genes in governing the inheritance of these traits which could be improved through simple selection.