Variability and interrelationships between traits of two maize populations

Synthetic maize populations are used in breeding as a source of superior inbred lines to be used as parental components of hybrids. Estimates of genetic variability, broad-sense heritability, and genetic and phenotypic correlations for grain yield, delayed silking, percentage of barren plants, grain moisture content and number of ears per plant were studied in two broad-base synthetic maize (Zea mays L.) populations, NS796A/92 and NS2040B/92. The nested design (random model) method was applied to assess the performances of half-sib families under conditions of severe drought during the 1994 and 1995 growing seasons in two locations.