Evaluation of promising forage maize hybrids under Markazi province climatic condition

Forage maize (Zea mays L.) is one of the important and strategic crops in Iran, which, as a fodder for livestock production systems, makes a major contribution to providing human protein nutrition requirements, especially red and white meat. In recent years, the area under cultivation of forage maize has increased (Ashofteh Bigrami et al., 2010; Mojab Ghasroddashti et al., 2017; Khavari Khorasani et al., 2010). Therefore, the aim of the present study was to identify and introduce promising forage maize hybrids that could be an alternative for commercial hybrids under Markazi Province climatic condition.
In order to compare and evaluate ten new and promising forage maize hybrids (H1, H2, H3, H4, H7, H8, H9, H10, 89MAY70 and HIDO) and two foreign commercial hybrids (KSC700 and KSC704) in terms of fresh forage yield, phenological and some morphological traits related to forage yield, the experiment was conducted in a randomized complete block (RCB) design with four replications during two years (2014 and 2015) at Arak Research Farm of Agriculture and Natural Resources Research Center in Markazi province. The experimental measurements included number of days to pollination (DTP), number of days to silking (DTS), anthesis-silking interval (ASI), number of leaf (No. leaf), stem diameter (SD), plant height (PH), number of ear per plant (No.ear.plant-1), fresh ear yield (FFY), fresh forage yield (FFY) and ratio of FEY to FFY. All data were subjected to analysis of variance (ANOVA) using the GLM procedure of SAS statistical program. Principal component analysis (PCA) was conducted to identify the interrelationships between the forage maize hybrids and all the measured traits and the biplot was drawn using the Stat Graphics software (ver.16.1.11).
The results showed that the differences among hybrids were significant in terms of the measured traits (P In general, the promising hybrid HIDO and H4 may be suggested as preferable and superior hybrids for further studies on the sustainability and compatibility of forage yield under climatic condition of Markazi Province. On the other hand, considering the importance of ASI as the main indicator for selection of resistant cultivars in areas under drought stress, it seems that two promising hybrids, i.e. HIDO and H4 with the shortest ASI could also be considered as preferable hybrids in the breeding programs under drought stress condition.