Author(s):

Asima Gazal, Ishfaq Abidi, FA Nehvi, Ajaz Ahmad Lone, Zahoor Ahmed Dar and Shabir H Wani

Abstract: Drought stress affects maize growth badly and ultimately the stability in yield. The present study wasused to understand the variability in maize linesby evaluating the performance of seedling root traits viz., germination %, number of seminal and crown roots, primary root length, fresh and dry root weight under three moisture management regimes. Wide range of variability existed in the population as indicated by analysis of variance, components of variability implying considerable scope for improvement through phenotypic selection. High broad sense heritability associated with high genetic advance revealed that the traits were genetically determined with an ample scope for the improvement of these traits by breeding and selection process. Mean performance of few inbred lines showed superiority in root traits over population mean and they were considered elite lines with inbuilt drought tolerance viz., CM-129, KDM-361A, KDM-372, KDM-1051, KDM-331, KDM-402, KDM-717, KDM-463, KDM-912A, KDM-343A, KDM-932A, KDM-961, KDM-1156,KDM-918A and KDM-1236.These elite lines exhibited maximum % increase for all the traits in stress regime as compared to well watered regime. As maize is cultivated asrainfedcrop and there is lack of hybrids showing resilience to moisture stress. So these elite lines would be exploited as parents in future breeding programmes for developing single cross hybrids with drought resilience to boost maize production and yield stability.

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