1Department of Forage Crops, Centre for Plant Breeding and Genetics, Tamil Nadu Agricultural University, Coimbatore - 641003
2Centre of Excellence in Molecular Breeding, Centre for Plant Breeding and Genetics, Tamil Nadu Agricultural University, Coimbatore - 641003
3Department of Crop Physiology, Tamil Nadu Agricultural University, Coimbatore - 641 003
4Centre for Plant Molecular Biology and Biotechnology, Tamil Nadu Agricultural University, Coimbatore - 641 003
Forage maize breeders face a significant challenge in identifying genetic make-up that are superior for green fodder yield. Because it is influenced by polygenic trait. Therefore, understanding the relationship between biomass yield and other contributing characters would be very useful in selecting better genotype for improving green fodder yield. Forty one fodder maize inbred lines were evaluated in a randomized complete block design during June -September, 2021 to design selection index through various genetic and multivariate analyses to identify elite fodder maize inbreds for hybridization. The genotypes were evaluated for fourteen biometrical and four fodder quality traits. The association analysis revealed that plant height, leaf length, leaf breadth, number of nodes, stem girth, L/S ratio had highly significant contribution towards green fodder yield. The D2 analysis indicated that green fodder yield has contributed about 55.60 per cent to the total variation followed by dry matter yield for about 17.92%. The Multivariate Genotype- Ideotype Distance Index analysis identified six superior inbreds namely GETM 25, UMI 1210, UMI 1221, African Tall, GETM 69 and TNFM 139-1.
Fodder maize, Diversity, Green fodder yield, Principal component
