Search

[Objective] The present paper aimed to explore the combining ability and the correlation of yield and ear characters of twenty new bred maize inbred lines. [Method] NC-Ⅱ mating design was applied in this research, twenty new bred maize inbred lines were crossed with five testers for obtaining 100 crosses. The utilization potential of crosses were evaluated through the analysis of combining ability and ear characters in two different ecological environment in Yunnan province. [Result] The result showed that all the ear characters were showed extremely significant level(P<0.01) at the cross, line, tester and line×tester, in addition to ear length, ear diameter, row ear number and kernel rate, the differences of ear characters between different locations were extremely significant level (P<0.01). The inbred lines with high significant yield general combining ability (GCA) effects were L1,L2,L3,L4,L6, L7 and L17. Among the top ten strong heterotic combinations, T1×L3, T5×L17, T1×L2, T3×L8, T4×L1, T4×L13, T4×L15, T1×L19, T5×L6 and T5×L16 had showed high significant special combining ability (SCA), most of those crosses were Flint×Dent (Semi-dent) or Dent(Semi-dent) ×Flint. Correlation analysis showed that the GCA effects of maize ear characters such as ear length, ear diameter, kernel row number and weight per 100 kernels had significantly positive correlation to the yield GCA, however, row ear number and kernel rate had not significant correlation with the yield GCA, the results showed that ear length, ear diameter, kernel row number and weight per 100 kernels had significant contributions to maize yield improvement. [Conclusion] According to our comprehensive analysis on the combining ability of yield and ear characters of 20 new bred inbred lines, seven lines L1, L2, L3, L4, L6, L7 and L17 showed higher utilization potential in the future maize breeding. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]