The Utilization of Lampung Podzolic Soil to Screen Synthetics and Female Superior Maize Hybrids Developed from Local Genetic Sources

Abstract

Choosing the field suitable for screening new developed maize hybrids was not an easy assignment. The soil as part of environment in a whole should be as such to not negate gene effects within the hybrids. The soil could be so rich that the inferior hybrids would perform as good as the superior ones, or the soil could be so poor that the superior hybrids would perform less than the inferior but well adapted ones. The development of maize hybrids following single-cross and or double-cross methods was making the seeds expensive for the maize growers and the kinds of hybrid seed available in the markets were limited. After being introducing numerous maize hybrids since 1975 to overcome Peronoscerospora disease on maize there were many of obsolete hybrids grown in maize-producing provinces by subsistence growers by reasons of their adaptability to local hindrances such as drought, low soil fertility and pH and plant diseases and insects while maintaining acceptable productivity.  The objectives of the study were to utilize Lampung podsolic soils to screen synthetics and female superior maize hybrids developed from local genetic sources from five provinces. The six hybrids were tested for their performances as compared to those of the Pioneer-36 hybrid. The study was done in April – July 2019 at The Lampung State Polytechnics Field in a Randomized Complete Block Design with three replicates. The results indicated the Lampung podsolic soil was suitable to screen the newly developed hybrids and ranked the hybrids to four classes. The performance of the synthetics and the female superior hybrids were in par with those of the Pioneer-36 hybrids measured as time to anthesis 52.67 – 58.33 dap, plant height 139.67 - 180.83 cm, leaf number plant^-1 12.33 – 17.00, tassel number plant^-1 14.33 – 19.00, ear number plant^-1 1.67 – 2.33, ear diameter 3.41 – 4.60 cm, ear seed weight 46.32 – 122.57 g, and seed yield 397.0 – 1050.6 g m^-2, respectively. The genetic variation of the traits: anthesis, plant height, leaf number, ear seed weight, and yield m-2; and the concomitant broad-sense heritability were greater than zero which indicated that the traits could be selected for a better progeny performance.