Title of project: Genetic Enhancement of White Maize for Food Purpose

Objective:

• To collect, evaluate and identify white maize germplasm with desirable agronomic traits
• To derive new inbred lines
• To group promising inbred lines into different heterotic groups
• To develop crosses between inbreds belonging different heterotic groups
• To assess the chapati making quality of white maize hybrids

Project team:

i.	Abhijit Kr Das, IIMR, Ludhiana	PI
ii.	S B Singh, Begusarai, Bihar	Co-PI
iii.	Mukesh Vayas, Udaipur, Rajasthan	Co-PI
iv.	Dr. Suby SB, Entomologist, ICAR-IIMR	Co-PI
v.	Dr. Zahoor Ahmed, Srinagar (J&K)	Co-PI
vi.	Dr. S.S. Sharma, Pathologist, MPUAT Udaipur	Co-PI
vii.	S K Guleria, Bajaura, HP	Co-PI
viii.	Savita Sharma, PAU, Ludhiana	Co-PI
ix.	Baljit Singh,PAU, Ludhiana	Co-PI

Major achievements:

• Strengthened the white germplasm base of the institute by importing whiye CML lines and population from CIMMYT, Mexico
• Two sets of diallel crosses (Set-1: 171 and Set-2: 210) generated from 19 (early to medium) and 21 (Late maturity) inbred lines along with checks were evaluated in four different locations during kharif 2018. In Set-2 four hybrids (S2H162, S2H17, S2H168 and S2H133) and in Set-1 six hybrids (S1H14, S1H50, S1H162, S1H171, S1H122 andS1H125) were identified with > 5% and >10 % superiority over the best check.
• GM-137C1 and CML-340 in set1and GM-243C5 and GM-61C2 in Set-2 were identified as best combiner with high GCA.