Assessment of genetic diversity of maize (Zea mays L.) hybrids under water logging condition

Abstract

The screening of fifty five CIMMYT maize hybrids was carried out to estimate the genetic diversity which wasevaluated undermanaged waterlogged or excess soil moisture condition, indicated presence of considerablediversity. The experiment was conducted in an alpha lattice design with two replication and phenotypic datawere analyzed using fifteen agro-morphological traits. The fifty five maize single cross hybrids grouped into eightclusters based on Mahalanobis D2 statistic. Among them cluster I accommodated maximum number of inbredlines (41) followed by cluster V (8). Presence of six solitary clusters indicated larger genetic diversity. Thecharacter plant height showed highest contribution towards genetic divergence followed by number of kernel perrow, ear height, number of rows per ear, grain weight per plot and 100 seed weight. Based upon the divergencestudies suggesting crossing may be made between genotypes of cluster II (P3502) and V (ZH17505, ZH17507,ZH17497, ZH15567, ZH15557, ZH15564, ZH15563 and ZH15562), and the hybrid in these cluster could beused as donor parents for new double cross maize hybrid development for improving yield under water loggingcondition.