Saeed Rauf
University of Sargodha, Pakistan
Title: Evaluation of teosinte, maize and their crosses for sustainable high fodder yield
Biography
Biography: Saeed Rauf
Abstract
Maize is an important forage and grain crop of the masses. Experiments were conducted to expand the yield potential of maize as forage crop and to increase the sustainability of yield due to biotic and abiotic stress. Results showed that maize subspecies (Zea mays spp., mexicana) has excellent potential to produce high biomass and forage yield. Unlike maize, teosinte demonstrated thermophilic properties namely lower heat injury, sustained chlorophyll content under heat stress (36-45° C) and high percentage seedling survival (at 55° C). Teosinte also had the ability to produce large plant biomass (27% and 55% higher yield than maize under non-stressed and stress conditions, respectively) and therefore could be exploited as a forage crop. Moreover inter sub-specific hybrids (F¬1) were developed to expand the forage yield potential and to incorporate species resistance against MSSB. There was a high percentage of heterosis in variable inter-specific crosses and traits and the presence of a high magnitude of over-dominance for many traits for example 5.93-7.06 for total biomass plant-1. Teosinte (‘PI566674’)×maize (‘Sargodha-2002’) crosses and three populations (F1, F2 and F3) were screened at various locations and in a contrasting artificial insect infestation experiment. Teosinte species ‘PI566674’, following screening was shown to be highly resistant to MSSB. The biomass of the F1 hybrid which was highly susceptible to MSSB was significantly reduced (P≤0.05) following infestation by MSSB in all experiments. The introgression from teosinte for genes conferring resistance to MSSB was screened in segregating F2 and F3 generations. Despite a susceptible F1 population, F2 was resistant to MSSB. Twenty new recombinant plants with resistance to MSSB and a high leaf soluble solid (16 °Brix) content were identified. They were selected to grow the F3 population. Mean values of F3 progenies showed similar resistance to the F2 population but a high percentage (60%) of resistant plants was recovered.