EVALUATION OF TURDA MAIZE GERMPLASM FOR PHENOTYPIC VARIABILITY IN GRAIN CHEMICAL COMPOSITION

Abstract

Maize grain has many and diverse uses in the food and feed industry. The diversity of applications requires characteristics of quality in accordance to that. To examine phenotypical diversity in grain content, a total of 754 maize samples were evaluated for their grain quality attributes: 265 local populations (landraces); 59 synthet- ics/composites and 430 TURDA inbred lines. Inbred lines were on average the most divergent in grain starch concentration (range value 19.9) as compared to lan- draces (range value 11.8) and synthetics (range value 12.5). The grain oil and ash content showed high variabil- ity among the genotypes. The quality attributes in most of the cases showed positive phenotypic correlation except grain starch contents which was negatively correlated. The objectives of this study were: i) to evaluate the po- tential of maize TURDA germplasm in according to its grain quality content, such as: protein, oil, fiber, ash and starch concentration; ii) to estimate the extent of pheno- typical variability and correlation for various quality com- ponents and iii) to formulate a selection criterion in a breeding program.