Classifying highland quality protein maize in bred lines into heterotic groups

Efforts to boost maize productivity can be undertaken through systematic management of heterosis. Combining ability test is a critical step towards identifying a heterotic group of new parental lines. Different heterotic grouping methods has been used by different researchers. Among these, SCA and hybrid mean, hybrid index, combined use of amplified fragment length polymorphism (AFLP), SSR markers and heterotic group’s specific and general combining ability (HSGCA) are the major grouping methods. This study aimed to (i) assign maize inbred lines into heterotic groups and (ii) compare efficiency of different grouping methods. An experiment with 21 maize inbred lines crossed to two testers with known heterotic groups was conducted in 2017. The hybrid and parent experiments were tested together and laid out side by side. This study identified good heterotic grouping procedure. The breeding efficiency of HSGCA was higher by 31.6, 11.0 and 9.6% over joint SCA and hybrid mean, SCA and hybrid index methods, respectively. While the hybrid index method was more efficient than joint SCA and hybrid mean and SCA by 20.1 and 1.3% respectively, the SCA grouping method was more efficient than joint SCA and hybrid mean method by 18.5%. The highest (37%) and lowest (28.1%) breeding efficiency value were scored by HSGCA and hybrid index heterotic grouping method, respectively. Based on the result, HSGCA grouping method was more efficient. The variable heterotic grouping of the 21 newly developed QPM lines in this study indicated that different heterotic grouping methods have different efficiency in grouping the germplasms.