Abstract

                                Experiments were conducted to identify the best parents and hybrids for gca and sca effects in maize under mid hill conditions of Himachal Pradesh. Females and males were crossed in Line x tester analysis involving 24 females and 3 males from adverse origin. The study revealed that dominance component of variance (σσσσσ2 D ) was greater than additive component (σσσσσ2 A ) for all the characters during both years as well as when combined over years. Six lines viz., 4, 8,11,13,17 and 23 performed consistently better for important seed and seedling traits, such as accelerated aging test, osmotic stress test, 100-seed weight, 100-seed volume, germination percentage and field emergence. Two cross combinations viz., line-5 x Early Composite and line-17 x Early composite were observed to be promising as these revealed significant and positive SCA effects for two most important features of drought tolerance viz., accelerated aging test and field emergence. Among testers, early composite showed desirable gca effects for 100 seed weight, 100 seed volume and field emergence.

Key words : Combining ability, gene action, seed quality traits