DIALLEL CROSSES IN WHITE MAIZE WITH EMPHASIS ON GRAIN AND HOMINY YIELD

Abstract

The special corn constitute an important niche market, especially the vegetable corn, popcorn and white maize. White maize is used as food in the form of hominy, flour and starch. Nowadays, there are few varieties of white maize in the market, making it important genetic studies of this type of maize cultivars to confer future higher productivity, greater yield in health and hominy grain. With the use of diallel crosses is possible to estimate important quantitative information about the genotypes under study, as estimates of the combining ability and heterosis.In this project we intend to make diallel crosses between different populations of white maize aiming to obtain estimates of intervarietal maize hybrids and promising market for white maize. Will be evaluated in 2011/12 14 intervarietal maize hybrids white corn obtained from partial diallel (2 x 7) of white maize. In 2012 the crossings will be evaluated and the parents of a 6 x 6 complete diallel (15 hybrids and 6 parents). The agronomic characters evaluated are as follows: male and female flowering, plant height, ear height, stalk lodging and breaking, ear weight, grain weight and grain characteristics as hardness, density and health. It also will evaluate the industrial characteristics such as yield and quality of hominy. The experiments will be developed in the harvests of 2011/12 and 2012 at the Experimental Center (IAC) and the South West Regional Paulista Pole Tatuí. The experiment is a randomized block with 4 replicates per plot were six rows of 5m spaced 0.80 m. Analysis of individual and combined variance will be duly performed, considering a fixed model and the averages were compared among themselves by Tukey test at 5% probability. Analysis of from individual and combined variance will be appropriately performed, considering a fixed model and the averages were compared among themselves by Tukey test at 5% probability.The model used in the analysis of partial diallel is the Geraldi and Miranda Filho (1984), allowing estimates of heterosis and its components and the complete diallel will use the model of Gardner and Eberhart (1966).This study aims at identifying the most promising crosses of white maize as the agronomic and industrial traits and can be used to obtain short-term and long-term to obtain of the intervarietal maize hybrids, lines or composed of white corn.Thus provide the farmers of the São Paulo State of new alternatives of white maize cultivars.