GENETIC EVALUATION OF YIELD-RELATED AGRONOMIC TRAITS FROM HALF-SIB FAMILIES OF MAIZE (ZEA MAYS L.)

This study was conducted to evaluate half-sib families (HSF) for yield and agronomic traits in maize (Zea mays L). One hundred and ninety-six half-sib families were used in this study derived from maize variety Azam. The experiment was laid out in 14×14 partial lattice square designs with two replications. Results indicated that the phenotypic co-efficient of variance was higher than the genotypic coefficient of variance for all traits except for fresh ear weight that reflects the environmental influence on the expression of the trait. High to moderate heritability was observed for days to tasseling, days to mid silking, days to anthesis, anthesis silking interval, kernel rows per cob, cob length and grain yield. Highly significant and positive correlation was observed between grain yield with cob length (0.99), kernel rows per cob (0.88), grain moisture (1.00), days to tasseling (0.94), silking (0.99) and anthesis (0.96). The negative and non-significant correlation was observed between grain-yield with fresh ear weight (-0.06). Maximum grain yields 10710 kg ha-1 was recorded for HSF-180 while minimum 2046 kg ha-1 was obtained by HSF-31. These results suggest that these half-sib families could be used as a source of maize germplasm for developing maize genotype with superior attributes.