Heterosis and Combining Ability for Yield and Its Contributing Traits

Experiment was conducted using 9 lines and 4 tester which were crossed in Line x Tester design and was evaluated along with two checks DHM-117 and BIO-9637. On the basis of morphological diversity seven crosses were found superior. Interestingly, it was found that diversity analysis through polymorphism present in seed storage polymorphism present in seed storage protein fraction was found to be in agreement with the heterosis for grain yield which advocates the use of seed storage protein polymorphism as an important feature for heterosis breeding in maize. Here we had also used 22 SSR markers to study the genetic diversity on the basis of molecular DNA polymorphism. But the results obtained was not be in complete agreement with the heterosis for grain yield data. This might be due to the less number of molecular markers involved in the present study. DNA marker can be used as platform for assessing inbred purity and hybrid purity of seed lot.