Abstract

This research was carried out to study heterotic groups and combining ability of yellow maize inbreds along with three commercial hybrids in Indonesia. Six inbred lines and two testers were crossed and evaluated for grain yield and heritability of agronomic characters. Randomized complete block design was used as an experimental design with three replications at each location. The hybrids and three commercial checks were evaluated across three locations in Indonesia (Bone/South Sulawesi, Mataram/West Nusa Tenggara and Probolinggo/East Java Province, Indonesia). The results of variance analysis showed that interaction mean squares of test crosses × locations exhibited significant results for grain yield (1.29**). Mean performance of test crosses for grain yield indicated that three test crosses viz., L3 × T2 (10.97 t/ha), L5 × T2 (10.39 t/ha) and L6 × T2 (10.27 t/ha) showed significantly higher yield over the best check DK 979 (9.80 t/ha), while hybrid L4 × T1 was the least performing in grain yield (8.44 t/ha). Based on the sca effect for grain yield, the inbred lines were clustered into two different groups. Inbred lines under heterotic group A were inbreds CLYN 10 (L3), CLYN 15 (L5) and CLYN 16 (L6), while CLYN 2 (L1), CLYN 7 (L2) and CLYN 12 (L4) were under heterotic group B. This information is useful for the development of superior hybrid in Indonesia.