Selection of Promising Maize Hybrids for Diferent Agronomic Variables

INTRODUCTION: In the final phases of a plant breeding program, promising genotypes are evaluated in various locations, under different climate conditions, soil fertility or even in different agricultural years. In these sets of environments, there is usually variation in the phenotypic expression of genotypes caused by environmental effects, and this expression is different from that predicted by the mathematical model used, i.e., there may be an interaction between factors (interaction genotype x environment). This means that the genetic and environmental effects are not independent, since the responses of the genotypes may differ with the environmental variations. In this sense, the objective of this study was to evaluate the genetic potential of experimental 6 simple hybrids and 3 triple hybrids, in Cultivation Value and Use (VCU) tests conducted in four locations in the state of Paraná (Londrina, Santa Tereza do Oeste, Guarapuava and Ponta Grossa), during the 2018/2019 agricultural year. METHODS: The design used was that of casualized blocks with three repetitions, having for control and comparison purposes the means of three commercial witnesses (MG600PW, JM 2M88, and NTX 468). The plots were composed of two 5-meter long lines, with 80 cm between lines, 20 cm between plants. The following variables were evaluated: female flowering (FF); plant and ear height (PH/EH) and grain yield (GY). The results were submitted to analysis of individual and joint variance and the means were grouped by Scott Knott's test at 5% probability, which were performed by the software R. RESULTS: The low values of CVs% indicated that the assays presented high experimental accuracy. Among the simple hybrids, the following genotypes stood out: IPS 1706, IPS 1718005 and IPS 1801 with a mean of 2.70%, 2.46% and 1.63% above the best control, respectively. In relation to triple hybrids, IPT 1725 and IPT 1719 stood out, presenting 1.09% and 1% above the best control, respectively. CONCLUSIONS: The simple hybrids IPS 1706, IPS 1718005 and IPS 1801 and the triple hybrids IPT 1725 and IPT 1719 showed promising potential similar to commercial cultivars. The same genotypes will be submitted to a new evaluation in the second harvest period in order to analyze the repeatability of mean performance per se.