Combining ability studies in maize (Zea mays L.) using populations diallel

This experiment was conducted in 9x9 diallel fashion to investigate combining ability effects in different maize populations at CCRI, Pirsabak during 2012. The experimental material comprised nine parents i.e. Jalal, Azam C3, Sarhad White C3, Pahari C3, Pop-2007, Pop-2008, Pop-2009, Pop-2010 and Pop-2011. Analysis of variance revealed highly significant (P≤0.01) differences for all the traits except kernel rows cob -1 . The genotypes and their F1 hybrid means for days to tasseling were (56 to 65 and 55 to 64), for pollen shedding (59 to 68 and 58 to 67), for silking (60 to 69 and 58 to 68), for kernal rows cob -1 (13 to 17 and 12 to 17), for cob length (16.5 to 21.2 and 14 to 22.5), for 100 seed weight (23.6 to 36.3 and 22.5 to 43.1) and for grain yield (4356 to 8477 and 4871 to 8948), respectively. Combining ability analysis revealed that general combining ability effects were highly significant for all traits. Among the parents, population 2011, population 2008 and Azam C3 were the best general combiner for all maturity and morphological characters namely days to pollen shedding, days to mid silking, days to tasseling, plant height and ear height. For yield and yield associated traits viz. cob length and grain yield parental genotype