Genetic Dissection of Advance Maize Lines for Yield and Protein Content

Abstract

Maize, an expanding grain crop in Bangladesh, faces high food and feed demand. However, domestic output is insufficient to meet demand, necessitating exports from other countries. Developing high-yielding cultivars is critical to meeting the national need for maize, and nutritional value should also be considered. This study aims to assess the protein content and yield of twenty maize lines by estimating the mean performance of twenty lines with fifteen quantitative characters and protein content, as well as measuring genetic variability factors, correlation coefficients, and path coefficients. The experiment was conducted at Bangladesh Agricultural University, Genetics and Plant Breeding Farm. The results of the analysis showed a significant difference at 0.1% level for most of the characters except cob length, cob diameter, and leaf number per plant in the analysis of variance. Finally, L3 (489.33 g), L10 (468.39 g), L13 (458.66 g), L9 (452 g), L4 (439 g) were evaluated as high yielding and L4 (12.51%), L18 (12.37%), L10 (12.57%), L7 (12.24%), L20 (12.23%), L3 (11.83%) were rich with protein content. In genetic variance analysis, plant height, cob weight, 1000 kernel weight, and protein content showed moderate GCV and PCV values, and cob weight per plant showed high GCV and PCV. Additive genetic advance deciding on plant height, cob weight, yield per plant, and protein content as high heritability along with GAM was observed for these traits. Correlation coefficient and path analysis showed that cob weight, diameter, and 1000 kernel weight positively contributed to yield per plant. Therefore, these parameters should be considered for further improvement of the lines.