Genetic Diversity

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Genetic diversity is used for identifying diverse parents in plant breeding programmes. In the present study efforts were made to establish correlation between genetic diversity and hybrid performance of single-cross hybrids. This was achieved by assessment of genetic diversity by a set of 15 RAPD primers among 10 inbred lines representing popcorn, a special type of maize used as snacks. From this analysis, I-07-35-7-3 and I-07-63-18-3 were found to be diverse parents. Single-cross hybrid developed from these inbred lines was found to be inferior in performance when compared to other hybrids developed from moderately diverse parents for all traits. The parents and 45 F1 hybrids were evaluated in randomized complete block design with three replications. The highest relative heterosis for grain yield was 99.16% and for popping expansion it was 67.31%. Correlation coefficients (r) ranged from -0.472 to 0.294. Genetic diversity based on RAPD analysis exhibited non-significant association or very low “r” value with heterosis, SCA and per se performance of the hybrids. The results obtained in this study demonstrated that the exceptional behaviour of moderately diverse parents resulted due to non-additive gene effect of the traits studied.

Key words: Correlation, Genetic diversity, Heterosis, Popcorn, Single cross hybrid, Specific combining ability

Introduction
Maize is among the top three cereal food crops grown and consumed throughout the world. It originated in Mexico and Central America (Weatherwax, 1955). There are different special types of maize grown for commercial purpose viz., sweet corn, popcorn and baby corn. In addition to these pod corn, waxy corn and flour corn are used for household purpose. Among different types of m...

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