Heterosis y aptitud combinatoria, para rendimiento y calidad forrajera, en poblaciones de maíz.

Twenty-eight crosses among eight populations of maize forage were evaluated in two environments (Celaya, Gto. y Gomez Palacios, Dgo. Mexico) according with yield and quality forage. This study was carry out to determine the heterotic patterns of the populations and to identify the better populations. Sintetico Forrajero and Tuxpeno Bajio populations were the best heterotic pattern, which showed the greater diversity for all traits studied. The highest forage yield was showed for cross between this two populations, 30.85 t/ha and 14.6% of heterosis. In addition, the highest general combining ability effect by forage yield over environments was of the Tuxpeno Bajio population. This suggests that Sintetico Forrajero and Tuxpeno Bajio populations are the best option to begin a program of recurrent reciprocal selection. The yield of dry matter and protein was not correlated (0.06); besides, protein had very little variation between maiz forage populations.