EVALUATION OF MAIZE INTERPOPULATIONS HYBRIDS ON CHEMICAL AND AGRONOMIC CHARACTERISTICS FOR SILAGE

Abstract

In silage production with whole plants it is important to identify and quantify their nutritional characteristics. This work was conducted from 1998 to 2001, in Jaboticabal - SP, to accomplish the second cycle of recurring selection in two maize populations (ESALQVF7 and ESALQ-VD8) used to obtain forage hybrids and to evaluate the selected hybrids in relation to agronomical and chemical characters. In the first phase, the material selected in the first recurring selection cycle was recombined and, afterwards, the S1 progenies were obtained for each population. In the second phase, forage hybrids were obtained by reciprocal crossings of these populations. To compare the hybrids, the experiments were installed at two locations in the 2000/2001 crop season. Differences were observed for the genotypes for all characteristics studied, such as height of the plant (HP), height of the ear (HE), acid detergent fiber (ADF), neutral detergent fiber (NDF) and crude protein (CP). The interactions of treatments, hybrids and controls with the environments were not significant for all studied characters. Concerning groups inside environments, only ADF presented significant differences. The ADF and NDF characteristics showed negative correlations with CP. There is genetic variability on the variables studied, indicating the possibility of obtaining plants with high productivity of FM and DM, low amounts of ADF and NDF and high contents of CP.

Keywords

• silage
• populations
• breeding
• recurrent selection
• chemical analysis