Drought-adapted maize line based on morphophysiological selection index

Padjung R, Farid M, Musa Y, Anshori MF, Nur A, Masnenong A. 2021. Drought-adapted maize line based on morphophysiological selection index. Biodiversitas 22: 4028-4035. Synthetic line formation is an effort to increase maize productivity in drought-stressed areas. This process requires systematic selection in determining adaptability levels involving important secondary characters formulated in the selection index. Furthermore, the principal component index had been widely reported, both in normal and stressed conditions. The selection index development on morpho-physiological characters based on multivariate analysis was expected to increase drought stress tolerance and maize lines selection precision. Therefore, the purpose of this research was to form a selection index based on morpho-physiological characters and selecting synthetic lines adaptive under drought stress. This research was designed using a split-plot with 3 replications, where the main plot consisted of normal and stressed irrigation, while the subplot was genotype consisting of 6 lines and 3 check varieties namely Bisma, Lamuru, and Sukamarga. Observations were performed on 18 morphological and 4 physiological characters, and the results showed that the selection index was formed based on multivariate analysis from 9 characters. Through index selection, Syn_2-2 (0.79), Syn_2-15 (0.85) and Syn_2-16 (0.97) were considered as drought stress adaptive lines. Therefore, the 3 lines can be recommended in the synthetic variety release process.