Evaluation of yield performance of selected North East Himalayan (NEH) maize landrace accessions of India, outside their habitat

Abstract

The study pertains to evaluation of yield performance of a selected set of North East Himalayan (NEH) landrace accessions of maize in locations outside their habitat. The geographical coordinates of the collection sites of these accessions were first mapped, followed by trials at Delhi and Hyderabad during 2005-2006. The analysis revealed considerable variation among the accessions for grain yield and its components, besides G x E interactions. Although the grain yields of the NEH accessions are, in general, not encouraging at Delhi and Hyderabad, due to drastically different climatic conditions, the study resulted in identification of 10 highly promising accessions for different yield-related traits at Delhi and/or Hyderabad. These were IML216 (IC130749; Arunachal Pradesh), IML347 (Sikkim), IML315 (IC251354; Tripura), IML390 (Sikkim), IML384 (Sikkim), IML264 (IC131166; Sikkim), IML365 (Nagaland), IML303 (IC251290; Nagaland), IML308 (IC251313; Sikkim) and IML242 (IC130980; Assam). Among these, IML216, IML347, IML315 and IML390 are particularly worth-noting due to their excellence performance for various yield attributes across both locations. Such accessions could be potentially utilized in developing broad-based pools/populations for improving diverse agronomically important traits in maize.