Influence of cob morphology and grain characteristics on oil content in maize (Zea mays. L)

Data on 28 attributes over ten selected varieties of maize were subjected to multivariate analysis of variance (MANOVA), followed by canonical discriminant analysis (CDA). to understand cob morphology, grain characteristics, its anatomical parts and oil in individual parts, which determine the level of oil in maize vis-a-vis processing performance indicators of the maize grain. First three canonical factors accounted for 90.1% of the variance among varieties. The first canonical axis reflected oil in germ and second, oil in bran plus endosperm-portions of grains from different parts of cob. The negative side of the third axis represented shape index (that is cob shape) and oil in bran and endosperm-portions of grains from different parts of cob, while the positive side indicated oil/grain. All the ten varieties were spread over almost entire areas of the planes defined by pairwise combination of the first three canonical axes. Specific varieties exhibiting varying degrees of richness in oil and possessing desirable technological processing characteristics could be clustered. A set of attributes was identified to serve as a guideline in breeding new varieties, rich in oil and yet retaining yield and processing characteristics.