INHERITANCE STUDY OF MATURITY RELATED PLANT TRAITS IN TWO DIVERSE POPCORN GROUPS - M. Noor; H. Rahman; M. Iqbal (Journal of Animal and Plant Sciences, 2016)
Just like both grain and fodder yield maturity traits are also important characters in maize breeding programs. In an experiment four each of parents, F1s, F2s, BC1s and BC2s were evaluated at Cereal Crops Research Institute (CCRI), Pirsabak, Nowshehra and The Agriculture University Peshawar. At both locations the experimental material was replicated thrice in randomized complete block design. Data obtained on maturity and plant parameters were subjected to combined analysis of variance. After observing significant generation effects gene actions were calculated using generation mean analysis. In all four crosses dominance gene action was found to be important in the inheritance of both days to anthesis and silking. In all crosses additive gene effect was found negative and significant except in cross PS-Pop-29-2-1 × BD- Pop-2-1-2 for anthesis. The digenic non-allelic epistasis of additive × dominance and dominance × dominance were considered the major contributors in the inheritance of days to anthesis in crosses PS- Pop-1-1-4 × BD- Pop-2-1-2 and PS- Pop-29-2-1 × BD- Pop-2-1-2. Duplicate type of epistasis was observed in cross, PS- Pop-1-1-4 × BD- Pop-1-2-3-3 for days to anthesis and silking, while complementary epistasis was observed in cross PS-Pop-1-2-3-3 × BD- Pop-2-1-2. Similarly, for both plant and ear height, dominant gene action was positive and significant in all crosses except, Pop-29-2-1 × BD- Pop-1-2-3-3 for plant height. Duplicate type of epistasis was observed for ear height in both crosses PS-Pop-1-2-3-3 × BD- Pop-1-2-3-3 and PS-Pop-1-2-3-3 × BD- Pop-2-1-2, while in crossesPS-Pop-29-2-1 × BD-Pop-1-2-3-3 and PS-Pop-29-2-1 × BD-Pop-2-1-2,complementary epistasis was found. It is concluded that crosses in which additive gene effects are high, could be improved effectively for studied characters in coming generations.
Keywords: journal article; Popcorn; epistasis; additive × additive; anthesis; ear height