Evaluation of Hybrid Maize Varieties in Three Agro-Ecological Zones in Ghana.

Abstract

Maize (Zea mays L.) is an important food crop in Ghana, but its productivity in farmers‟ fields throughout the country is generally low. The low grain yields can be attributed partly to the use of traditional low-yielding maize varieties. Farmers‟ adoption of hybrid varieties would reduce deficit of demand and supply of maize in the country. A study was undertaken to assess the relative yielding abilities and stability of 20 hybrids selected from the breeding programme of the West Africa Centre for Crop Improvement maize breeding program together with three locally released varieties. The trial was conducted in the coastal, savannah and transitional forest zones over major and minor seasons in 2012 and 2013. A randomized complete block design with three replications was used in each experiment. The relationship between yield and its components were also determined. Significant differences (p<0.05) were observed among the genotypes for days to anthesis, days to silking, ear height, plant height, field weight and grain yield. Highly significant (P<0.01) differences were observed among the three trial locations for all the traits studied. Grain yield showed highly significant differences (p<0.01) among the genotypes across the three locations. Significant differences among locations were observed for the 23 genotypes for grain yield, days to tasseling, days to silking, plant height, field weight, ear height. For genotypes, variations were highly significant for grain yield, field weight, plant height, days to anthesis and silking. However, there were no significant differences among the genotypes for ear height, ear harvest and plant stand. Apart from grain yield and field weight, differences due to the interaction (genotype x location) were not significant for all the other traits studied. The magnitude and nature of genotype by environment (GE) effect was significant using additive main effects and multiplicative interaction (AMMI) analysis of variance for grain yield. The main effects also were highly significant. Further analysis showed that the genotypes significantly contributed more than the environments in these effects. The significant genotype - environment interaction revealed by AMMI suggests that the relative performance of the genotypes changed for grain yield across all environments. The study also identified Wenchi as the location for the best grain yield performance and Tamale as an environment yielded low grain yield in both seasons. GGE biplot analysis revealed that varieties “wacci-m-1212”, “wacci-m-1204”, “wacci-m-1208”, “wacci-m-1209”, “wacci-m-1206”, “wacci-m-1220”, “wacci-m-1205” and “wacci-m-1207” were the high yielding and very stable hybrids. This supports the general opinion held by many stakeholders that use of hybrids holds the future of maize production in Ghana‟s agriculture and that serious efforts must be made to encourage the adoption and use of superior hybrid maize varieties in Ghana as a means of increasing maize productivity and production in the country.