IMPROVING SWEET CORN × DENT CORN HYBRIDS BASED ON KERNEL COLOR, SIZE AND QUALITY PROPERTIES.

The objective of this study was to determine the most-promising F1 hybrids with respect to kernel color, size and quality properties using sweet corn and dent corn inbred lines as parents. In this study, the F1 hybrids were produced using four sweet corn inbred lines as female parents (SC1, SC2, SC3 and SC4) and two dent corn inbred lines as male parents (DC1 and DC2). We observed that kernel size properties and 1000-kernel weight values of F1 hybrids were similar to those of the male parents. The hybridization of SC1 and SC4 with male parents exhibited a significant increase in L*, a*, b* values in their F1 hybrids. Total sugar contents of the F1 hybrids were found to be similar to those of sweet corn inbred lines. The highest sucrose content was found in the SC3 and accordingly in the SC3's hybrids. °Brix values indicated that our F1 hybrids are at an adequate level from the standpoint of a sweet taste. The findings in the present study led to the conclusion that it is possible to produce new type sweet corn x dent corn hybrids with improved characteristics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]