Assessment of resistance of multi-line hybrids of corn maize to fusarium ear rot corn disease

Fusarium ear rot is one of the most common diseases in the cornfields of the world that disease control by chemical and agronomic methods is often ineffective and increases production costs, that is because hosting resistance is the best sustainable and tolerable way to reduce losses. For this purpose, the experiment was carried out at the Agricultural Research Station of Gorgan, Iran, in the field of hybrids from susceptible and susceptible lines, and then evaluated the resistance of hybrids in the field of 2015-2017. Results of analysis showed that there was a significant difference between different hybrids for the desired traits. The hybrids were divided into three groups: semi-resistant, semi-susceptible and susceptible. Cluster analysis included 15 tolerant genotypes in one group with disease severity between 26-32%. The highest number of semi-tolerant hybrids was due to the crossing of two C7 and C5 tolerant genotypes with other genotypes. This suggests that these two lines could be a good source for the development of hybrid compounds susceptible to corn fusarium ear rot