Effect of mass selection on the mean and genetic variance of maize cultivar AL 25
Juliana Parisotto Poletine, Maurício Dutra Zanotto, and José Geraldo Carvalho do Amaral
This study analyzed the effects of mass selection on the mean and variance of maize cultivar AL 25, using 100 halfsib progenies of an initial cycle and 100 progenies of the 11th cycle. Randomized complete blocks were used for evaluating grain yield and ear height. Individual and joint variance analyses considering the two years of experimental duration compared the mean and variance components of both cycles. A slight reduction in additive genetic variance was observed as the selection proceeded for both analyzed traits. The increase in the means of grain yield and ear height with the selection cycles was also little expressive. The mass selection cycles did not promote significant alterations in this cultivar’s mean and variance.