Genentic Divergence among Local Maize (Zea mays L.) Cultivars of Kashmir Valley.

 

F.A. Nehvi, M.I. Makhdoomi, Vaseem Yousuf, Fayaz Ahmed Bahar , Sabeena Naseer and Z.A Dar

K.D. Research Station

S K University of Agricultural Sciences & Technology of Kashmir

 

 

ABSTRACT

Variability studies in local maize cultivars revealed high genotypic coefficient of variation coupled with high heritability and genetic advance for grain yield and ear height. Genetic divergence among 50 local maize cultivars was studied through multivariate analysis following D2 statistics. Cultivars were grouped into eight distinct clusters. Intra and inter cluster distances among the groups were determined and analyzed with respect to cluster means. Maximum intercluster distance was recorded between cluster 6 and cluster 7. cluster mean analysis indicated that the clusters containing solitary cultivars mostly differed for all the traits expecting for ear length. Ear length followed by grain yield contributed maximum to the divergence. Tremendous potential exists for introgression of allelic resources present in these adopted local cultivars into existing potential high yielding composites for recovery of high yielding in recombinants.

Key Words : Variability, Divergence, Maize (Zea mays L.)

 

INTRODUCTION

In crop improvement genetic diversity has been considered as important factor which is an essential prerequisite for hybridization programme for obtaining high yielding progenies. Maize breeders are consistently emphasizing the importance of diversity among parental genotypes as a significant factor contributing to heterotic hybrids (Ahloowalia and Dhawan, 1963; Hallauer, 1972). Quantitative measurement of genetic divergence among individuals have enabled plant breeders to understand the social affinities and evolutionary pattern in various species of cultivated plants as well as in making decisions for the selection of best parental combinations in hybridization programme (Morishima and Oka 1960; Rao, 1958). The usefulness of multivariate analysis, for the study of morphologically complex individuals and for measuring the degree of divergence between biological populations has been shown in different fields of research (Blackith and Reyment, 1971; Hussaini et al., 1977). Cluster analysis is commonly used for studying the genetic diversity and for forming core subjects for grouping accessions with similar characteristics into homogeneous categories. Among several methods of multivariate analysis, Mahalanobis D2 statistics has been shown to be very useful in selecting parents for hybridization that meet the objectives of plant breeder. Generally large number of quantitative traits is available for such multivariate analysis.

            Jammu and Kashmir state is a source of biological heritage and 90% of the maize area in the state is under the cultivation of local cultivars with distinct morphological difference for plant type, grain shape and grain colour. These cultivars have adoptability on account of early maturity and resistance to biotic and abiotic stresses. The present investigation was therefore undertaken to study the extent of variability and identify divergent lines for their future use in breeding programme.

           

MATERIALS AND METHODS

The experimental material comprised of 50 local maize cultivars collected from maize growing areas of Kashmir valley and 4 high yielding maize composites viz C8, C15, C6 and super-l used as checks. 50 cob samples were collected from villages of Khag, Yusmarg, Neilnag, Dalwash, Kralpathri (District Budgam); Shopian, Balpora, Malanpora, Tral, Turkwangwam (District Pulwama); Uri, Gurez, Bandipora, Pattan, Wagoora, Tangmarg, Farozpura (District Baramula); Qazigund, Dooru, Verinag, Kulgam, Pombai, Pahalgam, Mattan, Kokernag (District Anantnag).Kangan Wangat, Satrain, and Babanagri, Sonmarg, Dara (District Srinagar). 25 sampled village shows preference for different grain colours viz; orange yellow, yellow, creamish, white and purple. Progeny rows from each sampled cob were planted at K D Research Station.  Each plot comprised of 2 rows of 5m length. All recommended agronomic practices were followed to raise an ideal crop. Data on 5 competitive plants from each plot was recorded on 7 maturity, morphological and yield related traits viz; days to 50% silking, days to 50% anthesis, days to husk browning, ear height (cm), ear length (cm) and grain yield (kg/ha). Data was subjected to analysis of variance and coffecient of variability, heritability and genetic advance was estimated as per the methods of Johson et al. (1955). Divergence analysis was computed following Mahalanobis (1936). The individual contribution of characters towards the D2 for each cultivar was determined and a rank was assigned in the order of magnitude of contribution, for each character. The characters which contributed maximum were ranked 1 and the character which contributed least was ranked the last. Ranks of each character for all the cultivars were added to generate rank totals. Genotypes were grouped into clusters following TocherÕs method as described by Rao (1958)

 

RESULTS AND DISCUSSION

            Components of variance revealed a wide range of variability for all the characters. Variance arising due to differences among genotypes were highly significant for all the characters (Table-1). Days to 50% silking ranged from 71 days (C15) to 87 days (Pul-Tral, 26) with a population mean of 78 days, whereas, days to 50% anthesis ranged from 69 days (Bar-Bandipora, 33) to 85 (Sgr-Sonamarg, 16). Pul-Malangpora, 30 cultivar recorded minimum days for husk browning (131days), whereas, maximum days were recorded by Bar- Bandipora, 33 (148 days). Population mean for this trait was recorded as 140 days. Most of the local cultivars were observed to be early as compared to high yielding composites. Check recorded a range of 136-143 days for husk browning. Irrespective of the origin, plant height ranged from 118.50cm (Sgr-Wangat, 12) to 218.50cm (Bud-Khag, 3) with a population mean of 185.91 cm. similar trend of cob samples collected from district Srinagar and Budgam was recorded for minimum and maximum ear height (99.50 cm). The mean ear height  was recorded as 81.04 cm. Ear length which is an important yield attributing trait was minimum in case of local cultivars (7.93cm) and maximum in checks (20.02 cm). Over all mean for each length was recorded as 12.98 cm. A wide range of variability was recorded for yield (kg/ha). Highest yielder (C6) recorded an yield of 5828.50 kg/ha, whereas, a local cultivar for district Pulwama (Pul-Turkwangan, 29) recorded the lowest yield (1330.50). Average population yield was recorded as 2052.11 kgÕs/ha. It should be possible to isolate superior genotypes during the selection process.

            Success of breeder in changing the character of population depends upn the degree of correspondence between the genotypic and phenotypic values. Heritability has been used as a direct selection parameter to improve the efficiency of the process. The measure of heritability coupled with genetic advance provides useful information regarding the performance of selective population in comparison to the base population. Such a grain also depends upon the extent of genetic variability in the base population (Comstock and Robinson, 1952). The result revealed higher broad sense heritability value for all the traits excepting days to 50% anthesis (0.51). The results are in agreement with reports of Singh et al. (1995) and Kumar and Satyanarayana (2001). The genetic advance was high for grain yield (1074.03) followed by plant height (27.97) and ear height (22.95). For rest of the traits it was low ranging from 8.73 (days to 50% silking) to 3.63 (ear length). Low to medium estimates of genetic advance for maturity traits were also reported by Viola et al (2003).

            Mahalanobis D2 statistics revealed that values of V statistics (measuring WilkÕs criteria) were high and significant indicating presence of substantial genotypic diversity in the material. Classification of local maize cultivars resulted into grouping of 54 genotypes into 8 clusters with distribution of checks in 4 different clusters. Cluster 1 accomodated maximum number of genotypes (18) followed by cluster 3 (15), cluster 2 (12) and cluster 4(5). Rest of the clusters were monogenotypic. Considering the grouping of cultivars into different clusters, it was observed that cultivars presently grown in different maize growing areas had no tendency to be grouped together in the same cluster, revealing that there was no parallelism in the geographical genetic diversity. High yielding cultivars were grouped in different clusters. Among local cultivars Bar-Bandipora, 33 and Ant-Verinag, 44 recorded maximum grain yield and were grouped in cluster 3 and cluster 1, respectively. Whereas, among checks C6 recorded maximum grain yield with its distribution in cluster 6 (Table -2).A perusal of Table-3 revealed maximum inter cluster distance of 16309.19 between cluster 6 and cluster 7, followed by1268.67 (cluster 7 and cluster 8) and 10126.78 (cluster 3 and cluster 8). Minimum inter cluster distance of 1100was recorded between checks and local cultivars. Clusters with maximum number of cultivars revealed minimum intra cluster distances, cluster 4 recorded maximum intra cluster distance of 1104.10 followed by cluster 3 (1097.50). Cluster 1 with maximum number of genotypes revealed minimum intra cluster distance (603.90). Cluster 3 with maximum inter cluster distance accommodating Pul-Tral, 25 also showed high intra cluster distances. Thus it is clear that tremendous potential exists for intercrossing the allelic resources present in these adopted local cultivars into high yielding composites through a systemic breeding and selection approach so as to recover high yielding recombinants possessing also early maturity and resistance to biotic and abiotic stress.

Cluster mean analysis (Table-4) indicated that clusters containing solitary cultivars mostly differed for all the traits excepting for ear length . The highest cluster mean for days to 50% silking (95.50), days to 50% anthesis (93.0) and ear height (123.0) was exhibited by cluster 6 accommodating high yielding composite C6. Local cultivar Pul-Tral, 25 from cluster 7 recorded maximum cluster mean for husk browning (194.50), plant height (162.00) and ear length (16.65). Super-1 for cluster 8 recorded maximum cluster mean (5851.00) followed by cluster 6 (5763.00) for grain yield, however, among local cultivars maximum cluster mean (493.50) was recorded by cluster 5. This could have resulted from variation among these cultivars for various characters containing distinctiveness to these cultivars so as to make them occupy different cluster differences among them. This situation however, brings us to a very important consideration that grouping based on total D2 could be relied upon only when the characters of major importance like yield and maturity are taken into consideration Datta and Mukherjee (2005).

Traits contributing maximum to the divergence of the local maize cultivars (Table-5) were observed to be ear length (60.59) followed by grain yield (33.3)   and husk browning (4.47), whereas rest of the traits made negligible contribution to the divergence. It is proposed that traits contributing maximum towards the D2 value, need to be given great emphasis for deciding on the cluster to be chosen for the purpose of further selection and choice of parents for hybridization. similar results for ear length have been reported by Datta and Mukherjee (2005).

 

REFERENCES

Ahloowalia, B.S. and Dhan, N.L. 1963. Effect of genetic diversity in combining ability of        inbred lines of maize. Indian J. Genetic., 23: 158-162.

Hallauer, A. R. 1972. Third phase in the yield evaluation of synthetic varieties of maize. Crop Sci., 12; 16-18.

Morishima, H. and Oka, H.I. 1960. The patterns of interspecific variation in the genus  Oryza: its quantative representation by statistical methods. Evolution, 14: 153-165.

Rao, C. R. 1958. Bengal anthropometric survey, 1945: A statistical study.Sankhya,19: 201-408.

Blackith, R. E. and Reyment, R. A. 1971. Mutivariate morphometrics. Academic  Press, London New York. pp.111-132.

Hussaini, S.H., Goodman, M. M. and Timoty, T.H. 1977. Multivariate analysis and the geographical distribution of the world collection of finger millet. Crop Sci., 17: 257-263.

Mahalanobis, P.C. 1936. On the generalized distance in statistics. Proc. Nat. Inst. Sci. India, 2: 49-55.

Johnson, H.W., Robinson, H. F. and Comstock R.E. 1955. Estimates of genetic and environment variability in soyabean.Agr. Jr., 47: 214-318.

Datta, D. and Mukherjee, B.K. 2004. Genetic divergence among maize (Zea mays) inbreds and restricting traits for group constellation. Indian J. Genet. 64(3): 201-207.

Kumar, P.P. and Satyanarayna, E. 2001. Variability and correlation studies of full season inbred lines of maize. Journal of Research, ANGRAU., 29(1) : 71-75.

Comstock, R.E. and Robinson, H.F. 1952. Estimation of average dominance of genes. pp. 494-516. In Heterosis (ed) J. W. Gowen. Iowa State College.

Singh, G. Singh, M.and Dhiman, K. R. 1995. Genetic analysis of maize in Sikkim. Indian Journal of Agricultural Sciences., 65(4): 293-294.

Viola, G., Ganesh, M., Reddy, S.S. and Kumar, C.V.S. 2003.Study on heritability and genetic advances in elite baby corn (Zea mays) lines. Progressive Agriculture., 3(2): 127-128.

Table-1: Components of variance for maturity, morphological and yield related traits in local maize cultivars.

 

Components of

variance

Days to 50%

silking

Days to 50%

anthesis

Days to Husk

Browning

Plant Height

(cm)

Ear Height

(cm) 

Ear Length

(cm) 

Yield

(Kg/ha)

σ2p

26.30

26.18

27.94

189.74

127.71

3.12

271878.74

σ2g

21.74

13.26

21.93

187.08

125.91

3.12

271855.22

PCV

6.52

6.62

3.78

7.41

13.94

 

12.93

GCV

5.92

4.72

3.35

7.35

13.84

10.09

12.93

h2

0.82

0.51

0.78

0.98

0.98

0.99

0.99

Genetic Advance

8.73

5.34

8.54

27.97

22.95

3.63

1074.03

Genetic Advance as % of mean

11.09

6.91

6.11

15.04

28.31

20.77

26.63

Mean

79.00

77.00

185.91

140.00

81.04

12.98

2032.11

Range

71.00

to

87.00

71

to

85

118.90

to

218.50

131

to

148

48.50

to

99.50

7.93

to

20.02

1330.50

to

5428.50

 

 

 

Table 2:  Classification of local maize cultivars into different clusters

 

Cluster

Cultivars included

Cluster 1

35, 39, 3, 23, 22, 4, 5, 45, 51 C8, 18, 43, 34, 42, 24, 8, 15, 36, 44

Cluster 2

9, 41, 1, 10, 47, 14, 50, 16, 52, 27, 17, 26

Cluster 3

19,  32, 29, 31, 30, 48, 11, 12, 20, 7, 13, 38, 40, 21, 33

Cluster 4

2, 49, 46, 6, 37

Cluster 5

28

Cluster 6

53

Cluster 7

25

Cluster 8

54 Super-1

Bd- Khag1, Bd- Khag2, Bd- Khag-3, Bd-Yusmarg4 , Bd-Neilnag5, Bd-Yusmarg6, Bd-Dalwash7, Bd-Dalwash8, Bd-Kral Pathsia9, Bd-Kral Pathsia10

Sgr-Khag 11, Sgr-Wangat-12, Sgr-Satrain 13, Sgr-Babanagri 14, Sgr-Dara 15, Sgr-Sonamarg 16, Sgr-Sonamarg 17, Sgr-Gund 18, Sgr-Gund 19, Sgr-Gutlibagh 20.

Pul-Shopian-21, Pul-Shopian-22, Pul-Balpora 23, Pul-Malangpora 24, Pul-Tral 25, Pul-Tral 26, Pul-Tral 27, Pul-Turkwangam 28, Pul-Turkwangam 29, Pul-Malangpora 30.

Bar-Uri 31, Bar-Gurez 32, Bar-Bandipora 33, Bar-Bandipora 34, Bar-Pattan 35, Bar-Wagoora 36, Bar-Wagoora 37, Bar-Tangmarg 38, Bar-Fareozpur 39, Bar-Uri 40.

Ant-Qazigund 41,  Ant-Dooru 42, Ant-Verinag 43, Ant-Verinag 44, Ant-Kulgam 45, Ant-Pumbai 46, Ant-Pahalgam 47, Ant-Pahalgam 48, Ant-Mattan-49, Ant-Kokernag 50

 

 

 

 

 

 

Table3: Mean inter and intra cluster distances (D2) among the local maize cultivars

Cluster No

Cluster

1

Cluster

2

Cluster

3

Cluster

4

Cluster

5

Cluster

6

Cluster

7

Cluster

8

Cluster 1

603.90

1804.52

3533.11

2933.02

1805.65

2551.22

2551.22

5216.58

Cluster 2

 

941.13

5564.65

6582.96

1690.48

6389.42

4166.20

3437.39

Cluster 3

 

 

1097.50

2403.78

1954.51

3049.18

10126.78

3876.44

Cluster 4

 

 

 

1104.10

4057.38

8036.76

6788.13

8458.17

Cluster 5

 

 

 

 

0.00

2189.46

7009.43

1132.00

Cluster 6

 

 

 

 

 

0.00

16309.19

1100.00

Cluster 7

 

 

 

 

 

 

0.00

12683.67

Cluster 8

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

0.00

 

Table 4: Cluster means for different traits in local maize cultivars adopted to different temperate conditions of Kashmir

Cluster No

Number of cultivars in cluster

Yield

(Kg/ha) 

Days to Husk

Browning

Days to 50%

silking

Days to 50%

anthesis

Plant height

(cm)

Ear height

(cm)

Ear length

(cm)

1

18

3983.72

181.44

  86.81

83.61

152.64

83.14

18.10

2

12

4665.25

173.29

86.88

85.25

157.83

87.63

19.55

3

15

4581.60

173.50

86.33

83.57

151.73

85.00

15.63

4

5

3585.60

167.30

89.30

87.00

155.30

88.50

15.58

5

1

4923.50

167.00

91.50

82.00

157.50

124.00

17.84

6

1

5763.00

189.00

95.50

93.00

156.50

123.00

16.65

7

1

3104.50

194.50

82.50

81.50

162.00

99.00

19.53

8

1

5851.00

163.50

81.50

81.50

158.60

94.50

18.27

 

Table 5: Contribution of different maturity, morphological and yield related traits towards total divergence among local maize cultivars

Traits

Number of times appearing first in the rank

percent contribution towards total divergence among the material studied

Silking

10

0.70

Anthesis

0

0.00

 Plant height

64

4.47

Husk

10

0.70

Ear height

3

0.21

Ear length

8.67

60.59