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Published in Crop Sci 12:428-430 (1972)
© 1972 Crop Science Society of America
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Inheritance of Pericarp Thickness in Corn Belt Maize1

J. L. Helm and M. S. Zuber2

Corn (Zea mays L.) pericarp strips were excised and thickness of the strips measured with a plunger type micrometer at six positions: upper, middle, and lower areas on the germinal and abgerminal surface. The inheritance of pericarp thickness was studied in two experiments. Experiment 1 consisted of six inbred lines ranging in pericarp thickness from 84 to 160 microns, and the 15 possible single crosses and reciprocals among them making a total of 30 F1 hybrids. Experiment 2 was composed of six inbred lines ranging in pericarp thickness from 55 to 114 microns, their 30 F1 hybrids, 15 F2 progenies, 30 first and 30 second generation backcrosses. The experiments were grown at two locations in Central Missouri in 1965. Highly significant mean squares were obtained for estimates of lines, line heterosis, and specific heterosis using Gardner and Eberharts analysis II, but mean squares for lines were many fold times the mean squares for line heterosis and specific heterosis in both experiments. Reciprocal effects were of small magnitude. Heterosis was meager and inbreeding depression small. Heritability estimates in the narrow sense were very high, (80%). We conclude that breeding procedures that would take advantage of the large proportion of line effects should be successful in selection for either thin or thick pericarp

Key Words: Zea mays • Quantitative inheritance • Hull • Diallel

1 Joint contribution from the Department of Agronomy, University of Missouri Agricultural Experiment Station, Journal Series Number 6145, Plant Science Research Division, Agricultural Research Service, U. S. Department of Agriculture, and Anheuser-Busch, Inc. Part of a thesis submitted to the Gradhate School in partial fulfilhnent of the Ph.D. degree by the senior author.

2 Instructor (now Geneticist, Anheuser-Busch. Inc., St. Louis, Mo. 63118); and Research Agronomist, Plant Science Research Division, ARS, USDA, and Professor, Department of Agronomy, University of Missouri, Columbia, Missouri 65201.

Received for publication February 25, 1971.




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