Evaluation of Hybrid Maize Genotype for Yield and Yield Attributing Traits in Birendranagar, Surkhet

Abstract

Maize is the second most grown and staple food for most of the people in hilly region of Nepal. Also, it is used as source of feed and fodder. With changing consumer habit, increasing industrialization and urbanization, the demand of maize for food, fodder and feed is increasing day by day and the alternative to address increasing demand is hybrid maize which has higher yield potential as compared to traditional varieties. The main objective of this research is to study the performance and correlation between yield and yield attributing traits of different hybrid maize genotypes at Birendranagar-2, Hilekhali Surkhet. A field experiment was conducted during March to July of 2024 using alpha lattice design. Among the genotypes evaluated RH16 (check variety) had the highest yield (5.47tha^-1) followed by NH2223 (4.88tha^-1), RML2141/ RML2259 (4.82tha^-1) NH2226 (4.72tha^-1). As for correlation estimation observed traits showed positive correlation with yield traits. The phenotypic coefficient of variation ranged from 6.22 of plant height to 17.69 of yield and the genotypic coefficient of variation ranged from 4.81 of cob length to 14.23 of yield. The estimate of broad sense heritability was lowest (0.36) of cob length and moderate to high for plant height (0.93), cob diameter (0.85), number of rows per cob (0.81), ear height (0.72), number of grains per row (0.67) and yield (0.64). Higher heritability and high to moderate genetic advance as percentage of mean was observed for ear height, plant height, and numbers of row per cob, number of grains per row, thousand grain weight and yield. Based on yield performance, above genotypes could be promoted as high yielding genotype in Birendranagar, Surkhet.