Screening for vitreous QPM hybrids for nutritional security and farmer’s acceptance.

Abstract

The maize crop is well known for its commercial usage around the world. India is also focussing on its popularization through the development of QPM inbreds or hybrids which provides good quality protein, even also at comparative low resource utilization. In order to develop QPM hybrids at IIMR, a total of 650 entries including few inbreds and available germplasm were screened for quality protein parameters like crude protein and tryptophan. Apart from it, yield attributes like 100 kernel weight and specific gravity was also measured. The selection of inbreds was based on high specific gravity and tryptophan content. We found a positive correlation (0.0069) between protein and kernel weight whereas a negative correlation (-0.3215) between protein and tryptophan was observed. The results are very interesting and need to assess the crosses among inbreds genotypes for stability of the attributes in next successive generations.