Comparison of Morphological Characteristics and Yield of Leafy Corn Hybrids with Commercial Hybrids in Tehran Region

In order to study the morphological characteristics and yield of leafy corn hybrids, and comparie them with those of commercial hybrids, an experiment was conducted in the research field of Agricultural College, Tarbiat Modares University in 2005. A complete block design was used with three replications. Hybrids were obtained from crosses between leafy inbred lines and also commercial inbred lines with leafy inbred. There was a significant difference in single crosses on above and below leaf number and area, biomass, leaf length, plant height and distance between ear and tassel, internodes length, ear height (p<0.01). The most and least above ear leaf number were for b7*a4 and commercial hybrids, respectively. Most of the leafy hybrids had more above and below leaf number than commercial hybrids. Some of leafy hybrids produced the same yield as commercial hybrids and the others produced more. Considerable yield increment in the leafy corn can be attributed to the fact that the leafy gene produce twice leaf area in corn. Internodes length reduced in leafy hybrids due to increasing leaf number without plant height increment. The maximum and minimum grain yield were for b2*a4 leafy hybrid (10.22 t/ha) and SC108 non-leafy commercial corn (6.37 t/ha) respectively. Generally, b7*a4 and b2*a4 leafy hybrids produced the most biomass and leafy hybrid b2*a4 had the most grain yield.