Comparative Breeding potential of two crosses for response to late wilt disease (LWD) in maize ( Zea mays L.)

Plant Breeders routinely develop a large number of crosses. This poses challenge to breeders in terms of prioritizing the crosses for advancing the generations . This necessitates testing the crosses to assess the breeding potential on BC 1 F 1 and BC 2 F 1 generations derived from two different crosses involving parents differing for response to late wilt disease resistance was assessed for response to late wilt disease. The recurrent parent that is common for both the crosses, is a seed parent of popular public bred maize hybrid “Hema”. In the present investigation, BC 1 F 1 and BC 2 F 1 generations of two crosses NAI-137 × MAI-345 and NAI-137 × 97B were assessed for their breeding potential for resistance to late wilt disease. The breeding potential was assessed based on the mean, variance and frequency of transgressive segregants. The BC 1 F 1 and BC 2 F 1 populations derived from the cross NAI-137 × MAI-345 expressed lower mean (for response to late wilt disease), wider absolute range and standardized range, and higher phenotypic coefficient of variation and frequency of transgressive segregants. Hence, backcross populations derived from the cross NAI-137 × MAI-345 was identified as the one with better breeding potential than that derived from NAI-137 × 97B.