Introgression of Banded Leaf and Sheath Blight (BLSB) Resistance from Teosinte to Maize Cultivar

Maize (Zeamays L.) is a member of the Poaceae family and is targeted as the world’s most important strategic cereal food crop. This study was planned to screen the maize-Teosinte RILs population for banded leaf and sheath blight and agronomic traits. A total of 338 maize- Teosinte recombinant inbred lines (RILs), derived from cross between the high popping volume (HPV) Canadian popcorn inbred line (susceptible) as the female parent and Teosinte (wild relative) as the male parent (resistant).The data were recorded for agronomic traits and disease score for banded leaf and sheath blight . The mean sum of squares due to genotypes were observed highly significant (p<0.01) for all the trait studied. The 100 seed weight, an important trait showed highly significant positive correlation with number of seed rows per cob and cobs length. Path coefficient analysis revealed direct positive effect of cob length, number of seed rows per cob and plant height on grain yield. The first two Principal component values used to construct biplot graphs explained 39.70% of the total variation. The four maize-Teosinte RIL lines viz.; RIL-210, RIL-272, RIL-314 and RIL473 were screened resistant to banded leaf and sheath blight, which is a good source of BLSB resistance and would be utilized in breeding for maize improvement program. The recombinant inbred lines viz., RIL-6, RIL-26 and RIL-419 were identified as a better-performing line for multiple agronomic traits which, would also utilized to improve agronomic performance of maize.