EVALUATION OF DEVELOPED STANDARD SWEET CORN (Zea mays sacharata L.) HYBRIDS FOR FRESH YIELD, YIELD COMPONENTS AND QUALITY PARAMETERS

Sweet corn is primarily grown for fresh consumption, canning or freezing and harvested during the milky stage. Sweet corn growing is getting increasing in Turkey. To meet growers demand sweet corn variety breeding program has been carried out at West Mediterranean Agricultural Research Institute since 2000. Pedigree breeding procedure was applied to develop new sweet corn varieties. The objective of the study was to evaluate newly developed some sweet corn candidate hybrid varieties for their fresh yield, some yield components and determine some quality parameters in different locations of Turkey. In the present study, four candidate sweet corn hybrids (BT-1, BT-2, BT-3 and BT-4) which were selected from previous trials for further evaluations and three commercial checks, Jubilee, Merit and Sunshine were compared and the results were discussed. According to the results, BT-4 was determined as a new promising hybrid among the four candidates for fresh yield and some quality parameters.