Morphological Characterization of Teosinte Derived Maize Population

摘要

Maize is the world’s most widely grown cereal and it is ranked third among major cereal crops. Cultivated maize(Zea mays) is derived from teosinte (Zea mays parviglumis) and their morphological differences resulted from human selectionduring the course of domestication (Wang et al., 1999; Matsuoka et al., 2002; Doebley, 2004; Vigouroux et al., 2005). Wildspecies are very important sources of genetic variability and can be exploited by utilizing breeding programs. PasztorandBorsos(1990) and SrinivasanandBrewbaker, (1999) reported the existence of genetic variability for different important agronomic traitsin teosinte, like genes for diseases and insects resistance. As maize and teosinte differ in various aspects like morphology ofplant, plant height, tillering behavior, number of cobs per plant etc., therefore the aim of present investigation is to develop largenumber of teosinte derived maize population with diverse characters so that these can be utilized in further maize breedingprogramme. The objective of the present study was to create creating genetic variability or broadening of genetic background ofmaize. Parental maize inbred was nonprolific one having single cob per plant where as in case of teosinte cobs per plant rangesfrom 100-600. Most of the lines in both the generations are showing prolific nature i.e., number of cobs ranges from 2-7. SA-2,SA-4, SA-5 and SA-12 have 5 ears, SA-30, SA-33, SA-34, SA-46 and SA-57 have 4 ears and SA-79, SA-80, SA-81, SA-83, SA-91,SA-94, SA-99, SA-104, SA-108, SA-112, SA-113, SA-114 have 3 ears per plant. Among 126 lines 76 lines were showingprotogynous behavior in both BC1F3 and BC1F4 generations.Domestication may leads to reduction in genetic diversity in modernmaize compared to teosinte, which leads to limited productivity of maize. Easy crossing between maize and teosinte make itfeasible for modern maize breeders to use alleles that were lost during domestication. By utilizing prolificacy baby corn varietiescan be developed that is a valuable product for several food industries. Likewise protogynous lines reported to be droughttolerant so such lines can be utilized for development drought tolerant varieties.