Assessment of Heritability and Genetic Variabilty for Morphological and Yield Contributing Traits in Open Pollinated Maize Varieties

The knowledge of heritability helps the plant breeder to understand the performance of an attribute under consideration in next generation. Fourteen genotypes including one local check were assessed at the experimental farm of The University of Agriculture, Peshawar during spring 2016. The experiment was laid out in randomized complete block design with three replications. Analysis of variance showed highly significant differences (P≤0.01) for days to anthesis, days to silking, plant height, ear height, cob length, kernel rows cob-1 and 100-kernel weight, whereas grain yield revealed non-significant differences (P>0.05) among the genotypes evaluated. Genotypes, PSCV-9, PSCV-11, PSCV-13 and Azam as a check showed minimum days to anthesis (77.33), while minimum days to silking (79.33) were exhibited by Azam as a check. Genotype, PSCV-8 showed minimum plant height (107.13 cm) and ear height (41.73 cm), while maximum plant height (147.33 cm) and ear height (70.86 cm) was observed for PSCV-12. Genotype, PSCV-8 showed minimum ear length (17.28 cm), while maximum ear length (22.47 cm) was observed for PSCV-4. Minimum number of kernel rows cob-1 (12.33) were observed for PSCV-8, while maximum number of kernel rows cob-1 (15.33) were observed for PSCV-4. Minimum 100-kernel weight (28 g) was observed for PSCV-5 and Azam as a check, while maximum 100-kernel weight (38 g) was observed for PSCV-3. Low to moderate broad sense heritability estimates were observed for all the traits except for days to anthesis and days to silking which showed high to moderate heritability estimates. The present study revealed considerable amount of diversity among open pollinated maize varieties which could be utilized for further improvement in maize breeding.