Genetic Analysis of Important Characters in a Quality Protein Maize Composite at Two Plant Densities

One hundred full sib families were developed according to NCD-1 by crossing 28 random plants individually as males to four different female plants for the estimation of genetic components of variance and related parameters for various traits in a large random mating quality protein maize (QPM) composite, DQPMC-3. These 112 fulI-sib families were evaluated in a randomized complete block design in three replications at normal and high plant densities (53, 333 and 88, 800 plants/ha, respectively). Higher magnitude of variance due to females as compared to variance due to males for all the characters was observed at both the plant densities.The estimates of additive genetic variance were higher than those of dominance variance for all the traits studied at both the plant densities. Genes responsible for the expression of majority of the characters exhibited no dominance to partial dominance, indicating that β²_A was the sole contributor to total genetic variability. Heritability (narrow sense) estimates showed that sufficient proportion of additive genetic variance was available for an effective selection procedure to be used.