High Planting Density Tolerance of New Maize Hybrids for Yield Improvement

Abdelrazek, Usama Abdelhameid; Abou Elharess, Saied M. K.; Hamad, Ashraf M. S.; Bahgt, Mohamed M.

doi:10.21608/agro.2025.391844.1723

High Planting Density Tolerance of New Maize Hybrids for Yield Improvement

Document Type : Original Article

Authors

¹ faculty of agriculture tanta university, tanta, egypt

² Maize Research. Department. Field Crop Research. Institute, Agric. Res. Center Egypt

³ Maize Research Department, Field Crop Research Institute, Agric. Res. Center Egypt

⁴ Agronomy department, Faculty of agriculture, Kafrelsheikh University, Egypt

10.21608/agro.2025.391844.1723

Abstract

Selecting proper maize hybrids for high-density stress is a new approach to maximize its grain yield productivity. The present study was carried out at Sakha Agricultural Research Station, Egypt, during 2023 and 2024 summer seasons to assess general and specific combining abilities effects for some maize inbred lines and their hybrids for grain yield under two plant densities and two nitrogen levels and identify the better hybrids showing tolerance to high plant density. 36 hybrids (produced from half diallel crossing among nine yellow maize inbred lines) and two commercial checks, (SC168 and SC178), were evaluated using a split-split plot design with three replications under two rates of nitrogen fertilization and two plant densities. Grain yield/ha and grain yield/plant were significantly increased under N2 by 8.8 and 7.6%, respectively. grain yield/ ha was significantly increased under D2 by 18.12%, while the reverse was obtained for grain yield/ plant which reduced under D2 by 9.28%. Analysis of variance for GCA and SCA were highly significant for studied traits, indicating that both additive and non-additive gene effects were important in the inheritance of studied traits. However, the magnitude of additive gene effects was higher for both traits. The inbred lines P2, P3, P8 and P9 showed positive and significant GCA effects for the studied traits. Five hybrids; (P2×P8), (P2×P9), (P3×P7), (P3×P8) and (P5×P8) significantly outyielded per hectare and per plant than the two checks across all environments. These hybrids could be used to improve high plant density tolerance for grain yield.

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