Unveiling the Sweetness: Evaluating Yield and Quality Attributes of Early Generation Sweet Corn (Zea mays L.var. saccharata) Inbred Lines through Morphological, Biochemical and Marker-based Approaches.

Abstract Background Sweet corn is gaining tremendous demand worldwide due to urbanization and changing consumer preferences. However, genetic improvement in this crop is limited due to narrow genetic base and other undesirable agronomic traits that hinders the development of superior sweet corn genotypes.Methods A study was undertaken to carry out morphological and biochemical evaluation of 80 early generation inbred lines (S2) of sweet corn that were developed from a cross between two sweet corn hybrids (Mithas and Sugar-75) at Mountain Research Centre for Field Crops, Khudwani, SKUAST Kashmir during Kharif 2020. Furthermore, validation for favourable recessive alleles for sugar content was also done using SSR markers. The 80 sweet corn inbreds evaluated for phenotypic characterization showed wide range of variability with respect to different traits studied. The highest content of total carotenoids was found in the inbred S27 (34µgg− 1) followed by the inbred S65 (31.1µgg− 1). The highest sugar content was found in the S60 (8.54%) followed by the S14 (8.34%). Comparing the results of scatter plot for biochemical traits with morphological traits, it was revealed that inbreds S9, S23, S27 and S36 contains high levels of total sugars and total carotenoids along with moderate values for yield contributing traits indicating that these inbred lines could be utilized as source of favourable alleles in sweet corn breeding programmes after further validation for yield attributes, disease resistance and other preferable agronomic traits.Conclusion The results of the present study, has identified several inbreds harbouring desirable biochemical and agro morphological attributes related to high yield. Consequently, the study will not only enhance the genetic base of sweet corn germplasm but will also lead to development of high-yielding hybrids with improved quality. Molecular characterization of 60 inbred lines led to the identification of seven inbreds viz., S21, S28, S47, S48, S49, S53, and S54, which were sugary at both the loci (umc2061 and bnlg1937) and were also found to possess high sugar content through biochemical analysis, indicating their potential as desirable candidates for breeding programs aimed at improving sweet corn yield and quality. These findings demonstrate the effectiveness of these molecular markers in facilitating marker-assisted selection for important traits in sweet corn breeding.