Assessing drought tolerance of traditional maize genotypes of Mozambique using chlorophyll fluorescence parameters

Abstract Just behind wheat and rice, maize is the third most important grain crop in the world, grown in many agricultural areas. In Mozambique, rainfall is declining, posing serious threats to national food sovereignty and security, particularly in southern regions of the country. Despite this fact, few research studies have been conducted on the performance of Mozambique´s maize germplasm under drought stress conditions. A randomized design combining eight maize genotypes (six traditional Mozambican genotypes: LVA34, TCDE, G234, D456C, MABC, C123; and two commercial cultivars from DuPont Pioneer: P0023 and P9838) and three water regimes (control (irrigated), stress and recovery) was used to characterize the maize resilience to water deficit. The photochemical performance was accessed by rapid chlorophyll fluorescence induction curves (JIP-test). The use of Performance Index based dendrogram analysis allowed to explain genotypes behavior on the different experimental sets (control, drought stress and recovery). G234 and C123 presented the best performance with the lowest mortality rates, showing a better ability to cope with drought stress when compared to other genotypes from Mozambique and to the commercial cultivars from DuPont Pioneer.