Vol. 11, Issue 9 (2022)

Author(s):
Sikha Snehal, Ajay Kumar and Vinay Kumar Sharma

Abstract:
Present study was undertaken to examine the level of genetic variability and diversity for eleven morphological and phenological traits of eighteen quality protein maize (QPM) inbred lines evaluated in randomized block design during two seasons. The phenotypic coefficient of variation was found higher than the respective genotypic coefficient of variation for all characters during both the seasons. Relatively greater magnitude of difference in phenotypic and genotypic coefficient of variation was observed for phenological characters like days to silking, days to tasseling and days to brown husk as well as morphological characters like ear height, grain yield per plant and test weight. The data on heritability in broad sense and genetic advance as percent of mean indicated the existence of exploitable extent of genetic variability for all the characters. Ward minimum variance approach based dendrogram constructed from pooled data indicated the interrelationship among the inbred lines, which were observed to be distributed among five clusters. Six out of eighteen inbred lines were accommodated in the largest cluster, whereas the smallest cluster consisted of two inbred lines. The range of intra-cluster and inter-cluster distances revealed ample genetic differentiation and genetic diversity for morphological and phenological characters amongst inbred lines under evaluation. Experimental findings of this study provided the basis to suggest that allelic diversity among the inbred lines can be employed in future breeding programs.