Vol. 12, Issue 12 (2023)

Author(s):
Tejaskumar H Borkhatariya, Dipakkumar P Gohil, Dinesh J Parmar, Praful M. Sondarava and Kuldeep M Akbari

Abstract:
Despite being a dual-purpose crop, very few studies have been done so far on maize for improving fodder quality and yield. The present investigation was carried out with 48 fodder maize genotypes analyzed for genetic variability, diversity (Mahalanobis’s D²) and principal components (PCA) in fodder maize. The observations were recorded for 13 different characters including biochemical traits like CP, NDF and ADF. The highest GCV (19.90%) and PCV (24.09%) was observed for green fodder yield per plant and it also had high heritability along with high genetic advance, indicating that selection for this trait would be fruitful. In PCA, three PCs extracted collectively contributed 72.5% of the total variability. Hence, the genotypes that recorded higher PC scores in PC1, PC2 and PC3 could be utilized in the further hybridization program to enhance the fodder yield in maize. D² analysis grouped 48 genotypes in nine different clusters. The maximum inter-cluster distance was present between clusters 5 (GWC-0320) and 9 (AFMC-1) [D = 14.60] followed by clusters 2 (Origin Mexico-6360) and 9 (AFMC-1) [D = 14.56]. Thus, crosses should be made among them to exploit better heterosis for enhancing green fodder yield in maize.