Reciprocal effect on grain yield and yield components in single-cross maize hybrids

Abstract

Reciprocal effect in maize refers to the phenotypic difference between reciprocal F1 hybrids. The aim of this study was to estimate influence of reciprocal crosses on grain yield and eight yield components. Five single-cross hybrids, their reciprocal crosses and six parental inbred lines were selected and all hybrids belong to late maturity group (FAO 500-600) with Lancaster ZPL-7 line as mutual parent. The experiment was set up in two replications using a completelyrandomized block design in 2016 and 2017, at a total of seven environments. Reciprocal effect significantly influenced only grain yield and ear length, while factors hybrid and location were significant for all the examined traits. All hybrids individually displayed significant reciprocal effect for grain yield, ear length, number of kernels per row and 100 kernel weight, two hybrids for kernel length and thickness, while three hybrids showed reciprocal effect on kernel width. The effects were both positive and negative depending on the genotype itself. Furthermore, there were no significant differences for ear row number and ear width between normal and reciprocal variants. The highest difference for grain yield was between ZP 606 reciprocal (12.06 t/ha) and ZP 606 normal (11.28 t/ha). Pearson correlations were calculated between examined traits. All correlations between grain yield and other yield components were found significant and positive, except for the number of rows per ear (no correlation) and kernel width (negative correlation). Reciprocal effect has strong influence on the measured yield traits, but it is genotype specific. Therefore, in the future we should examine normal and reciprocal variants of all commercial maize hybrids.