COMBINING ABILITY OF ANTHOCIANYNS YIELD AND AGRONOMIC TRAITS ON NATIVE POPULATIONS OF PIGMENTED MAIZE

Abstract

The red, blue and purple maize (Zea mays L.) kernels contain anthocyanins of importance in the human diseases prevention. Nowadays, the selection of maize based on kernel color is considered relevant. To define efficient selection methodologies is convenient to apply genetics designs that allow analyzing the genetic contribution on the quantitative variation in the traits of interest. A genetic design was used to estimate general (GCA) and specific (SCA) combining abilities, maternal (ME) and reciprocal (RE) effects of the anthocyanin concentrations per unit of weight of grain (AC_kg) and the anthocyanin yield per hectare (AY_ha). An experiment of diallel crosses between five native populations with different grain color was established where some agronomic traits were measured. In another experiment, F₂ seed was obtained using controlled pollination, to determine the concentrations of anthocyanin in the whole grain. Using data from both experiments the anthocyanins yield per plant (AY_pta), per hectare (AY_ha) and the heterosis (%) were calculated. There was similarity among progenitors in the agronomic traits, but they differed on their capacity to accumulate antho-cyanin. The GCA effects were superior in most of the agronomic traits compared to the SCA. The AY_pta had significant effects of GCA, SCA and RE, being the Red-1 population the one of greater GCA. There was heterosis in crosses for AC_kg, where the best ones were Red-1 x Red-2, Red-1 x Blue-1 and Red-1 x Blue-2; and for AYha the best crosses were Red-1 x Red-2 and Red-1 x Blue-2.