PRODUCTIVITY OF THREE MAIZE HYBRIDS UNDER DIFFERENT PROPORTIONS OF MALE STERILE AND FERTILE SEEDS

"The objective of this study was to find the yield performance of three hybrids of maize, including Tsiri Puma, in their male sterile and fertile versions, and also to determine the best mixing proportions of male sterile and fertile seeds, at two planting dates. Thus, two experiments were established at the Facultad de Estudios Superiores Cuautitlán (FESC-UNAM) in the spring-summer 2012 season, and a randomized complete block design with three replications was used. The sources of variation were planting dates, hybrids, male sterile and fertile seed proportions (0-100; 20-80; 40-60, 60-40, 80-20; 100-0) and their interactions. The yield was not significantly different between planting dates, but the comparison of means between genotypes detected that hybrid Tsiri Puma 1 (8989kg·ha-1) had a statistically bigger yield than H-47 AE (8190kg·ha-1). The comparison of means (Tukey, 0.05) between the proportions of male sterile and fertile seed, considering the average of the three genotypes and the two planting dates, defined two groups of significance, where the two best yielding were those of 100% male sterile:0% fertile (9441kg·ha-1) and 80% male sterile:20% fertile (9390kg·ha-1) seed proportions. Since the version with only male sterile seed is not a practical feasible option, an appropriate choice is that of 80:20, which optimizes the production schema by needing less labor and requiring only a 20% fraction of fertile seed. The proportion of 100% fertile seed had the lowest yield (8116kg·ha-1) among all seed proportions tested."