Effect of reciprocal crosses on grain yield and other agronomic traits in maize

Abstract

The goal of this experiment was to examine a possible influence of reciprocal crosses on grain yield and some morphological traits in maize. Field trials were set up on three locations (Zemun Polje, Pancevo, Becej) during 2015 and 2017. Five elite inbred lines were selected in order to produce hybrid combinations for the trial, two of them were of Lancaster origin and used as tester lines (ZPT1, ZPT2), while remaining three had a Non Lancaster origin (ZPL1, ZPL2 and ZPL3). By performing reciprocal crossings between Lancaster and non Lancaster inbred lines, twelve single cross hybrids were produced for the trial. Trials were set up on three locations during two years and grain yield, grain moisture, plant height, ear height and mass of 1000 kernels were analyzed. Location, year and reciprocal crosses were significant factors for all examined traits. Reciprocal crosses had statistical significance on two hybrid combinations in terms of grain yield and grain moisture. SNPs molecular markers were used to assess the genetic diversity of the inbred lines involved in this experiment. When it comes to plant height and mass of thousand kernels, a statistically significant difference was observed in one hybrid combination. The largest reciprocal differences between original and reciprocal hybrids were recorded in grain yield, which were statistically significant for the crosses ZPH4/ZPH4R and ZPH2/ZPH2R (20.03% and 19.49% respectively). The ZPH2/ZPH2R hybrid combination is the combination with the statistically significant differences between the original and reciprocal hybrid, for all evaluated traits except for grain moisture. Reciprocal hybrids ZPH5/ZPH5R and ZPH6/ZPH6R with ZPL3 as their maternal inbred line didn?t express a statistically significant differences between both variants, e.g. their reciprocal effect was low.