COMPARAÇÃO DE TIPOS DE CULTIVARES DE MILHO QUANTO AO RENDIMENTO DE GRÃOS

Abstract

The Northeast, including Maranhão, there are great poles of development for the maize crop, due to a good potential for growth of agribusiness and marketing of agricultural production. In order to analyze the productivity of maize in this region and compare the average performance between different genetic classes, we analyzed different types of hybrids and open pollinated varieties. They were evaluated in two essays. The first, with 42 cultivars, 23 simple hybrids, 11 hybrids and 8 triple double hybrids. The second, with 40 cultivars, 12 simple hybrids, hybrid 7 doubles, 7 triples and 14 hybrid varieties of open pollinated. The design was a randomized complete block with two replications. Each plot consisted of two useful rows spaced 5.0 m at 0.90 m. The tests were grouped and the average productivity of the different gene classes was compared by t test and confidence intervals. On average, single-cross hybrids were superior to other types of cultivars. There was no difference between double and triple hybrids, but the two types of cultivars were higher than the group of open-pollinated variety. This result demonstrates the importance of the commercial exploitation of heterosis in maize. However, it is not possible to generalize on the recommendation of cultivars, because despite the obvious differences regarding the average yield on a small scale some simple and triple hybrids produced less than a few doubles and even hybrid varieties.