Abstract:
Global warming and predictions of climatic changes
additionally put breeding for
drought tolerance in the focus of breeding programm
es for maize. Extensive studies on
the existing gene bank collection of the Maize Rese
arch Institute “Zemun Polje“ have
been performed with the aim to identify and form in
itial sources for the development of
maize inbreds more tolerant to drought. All accessi
ons (about 6,000) were exposed to
controlled drought stress in Egypt. Out of this num
ber, approximately 8% of the tested
genotypes were selected. In this study attention wa
s given to 321 selected Western Balkan
maize landraces, adapted to temperate climate growi
ng conditions and the day length.
Data derived from morphological characterization ac
cording to CIMMYT/IBPGR
descriptors for maize, along with the application o
f numerical classification methods,
were used to define homogeneous landraces groups ba
sed on morphological similarities.
Results obtained from hierarchical and non-hierarch
ical analyses revealed the formation
of 11 divergent groups. According to the obtained g
rain yield and visually scored stalk
lodging and stay green, approximately 15% of the ac
cessions from each of 11 groups were
selected. Further investigations are towards defini
ng their heterotic patterns and their
possible utilization in developing and improving sy
nthetic populations.
Keywords
: Correspondence analysis, Discriminant analysis, H
omogenous groups.
