Abstract

The present study was carried out to investigate the genetic structure of 28 hybrids generated by crossing 8 diverse and new maize inbred lines in a half diallel fashion. The estimated value of average degree of dominance (H₁/D)^0.5 revealed that non-additive genetic effects was more pronounced in the inheritance of days to 50 per cent maturity, anthesis-silking interval and grain yield per plant. On contrary, additive genetic effects was evident for days to 50 per cent tasseling and days to 50 per cent silking. The distribution of positive and negative genes were not too distant  for the traits viz., days to 50 per cent tasseling, days to 50 per cent  silking and grain yield per plant. Dominance to recessive genes ratio [4DH₁]^0.5 + F / [4DH₁]^0.5- F ranged from one to two, indicating that excess of dominant genes against one recessive genes were not much higher. The results indicated that most traits were under the genetic control of non-additive (over dominance) type of gene action, therefore the material can easily be exploited for heterotic effect.

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