*Part of the unpublished thesis submitted by the author in partial fulfilment of Ph. D. degree to P.G. School IARI, New Delhi.
I.A.R.I. Regional Station, Indore-452 001
Online published on 25 January, 2012.
Thirty three maize germ plasm complexes have been ranked in different ways, by the three composite testers in respect of yield as shown by significant line × tester interaction. With regard to the components of yield also a more or less similar picture is seen but in case of maturity character (days to silk), there has been appreciable degree of agreement in ranking by three testers. Correlations between ranking by pairs of testers were also not significant for most of comparisons confirming the results obtained from males × females interaction.
In view of non-agreement between the testers in ranking the germ plasm complexes and since the broader the genetic base of tester, the better the estimate of general combining ability, the best appreciation of the potentialities of the complexes would be obtained when their performance over all the three testers is taken into consideration. This suggests the need to use more than one tester for such evaluation.
