Relative performance and combining ability for yield and yield component in maize by using a full diallel cross

Maize (Zea mays L.) is an important food crop but its productivity in farmers’ field throughout the country is generally low due to limitation of high yielding improved maize hybrid varieties. Knowledge of combining ability and gene action is essential to identify good combiner inbred lines and high yielding potential hybrids. The objectives were to evaluate combining ability of the elite maize inbred lines with respect to yield and yield related traits. Six inbred lines were mated in a full dialle fashion to obtain of all possible crosses including their reciprocals to develop 30 single cross hybrids in the year 2014. The hybrids and parent line along were evaluated in Maize researches station-General authority for agricultural researches in Abu-Ghriab. Data were recorded for grain yield and other related traits and subjected for analysis of variance. Full dialle analysis was used to estimate the general and specific combining ability effects for yield and yield related traits. Analysis of variance revelation significant variation at (p<0.01) for most of studied traits. Regarding Combining ability analysis, mean squares due to GCA, SCA and RCA were significant for most of the traits except number of rows per ear and number of kernels per row for RCA. indicating the importance of additive and Non-additive gene action in controlling the expression of traits. Among lines ART-B263, HNG9 and UMGW4 showed good general GCA for most of the characters studied. Among the crosses HNG9× UMGW4 (192.2 g.p-1), DAQ× HNG9 (181.85 g.p-1) and ART-B263× UMGW4 (175.66 g.p-1), for reciprocals crosses HNG9× DAQ (177.54 g.p-1), UMGW4× ART-B263 (170.13 g.p-1) and UMGW4× HNG9 (170.96 g.p-1) performed better for grain yield and yield related traits studied. It can be concluded that the parental lines which manifested good general combining ability can be desirable parents for hybrids, Besides the hybrids that gave good yield can be potential varieties for commercial production. However, further evaluation of these breeding materials atmore locations and year, is advisable to confirm the promising results observed in the present study.