Heritability Estimates for Maturity and Plant Characteristics in Popcorn

Genetic parameters particularly heritability estimates for a trait of interest help plant breeders to plan their long term breeding programs more accurately. This study was conducted to estimate the magnitude of heritability for flowering and maturity attributes along with plant and ear height parameters in four popcorn populations. Broad sense heritability estimates varied from 0.69 to 0.76, while narrow sense ranged from 0.38 to 0.69. Maximum broad sense heritability estimate of 0.84 was observed in cross- II for days to anthesis. Minimum narrow sense heritability of 0.46 was calculated in cross-III for plant height. Plant height exhibited high estimates of broad sense heritability estimates (0.69 to 0.85). Similarly, narrow sense heritability ranged from 0.52 to 0.69. High broad sense heritability estimates of 0.80 to 0.88 were calculated for days to maturity in cross-II and cross-III, respectively. Similarly minimum heritability estimate of 0.60 was observed in cross cross-III. The mean of F1 generations was low in almost all crosses from their parents for flowering and plant characters. It is concluded that in all crosses broad and narrow sense heritability estimates were of moderate to high range, indicating that the total variability was mostly of genetic nature and hence, could be effectively utilized in maize breeding programs for developing popcorn varieties having early maturity and accompanied with other desirable attributes.