COMBINING ABILITY FOR CARBOHYDRATE COMPONENTS ASSOCIATED WITH CONSUMER PREFERENCES IN TROPICAL SWEET AND WAXY CORN DERIVED FROM EXOTIC GERMPLASM

Abstract

Vegetable corn with an excellent, balance proportion of kernel carbohydrates in relation to good eating quality appeals to consumers. Sweet-waxy corn hybrid is proposed to improve palatability of traditional cooked waxy corn, well known as synergistic corn. We determined genetic effects of sugars, phytoglycogen, total starch, and amylopectin and estimated general combining ability of parents for these traits. Three sweet corn lines assigned as female were crossed with eight waxy corn lines as male following the North Carolina II. About 11 parents, 24 F1 progenies, and 3 checks were evaluated in randomized complete block design with three replications in two seasons between 2017-2018. Then, entry means of 38 genotypes was clustered with dendogram. Additive effect was important for favored kernel carbohydrates except for phytoglycogen. Two sweet corn lines 101LBW and 101LTSC-10 were proposed as broad-based testers for total sugar and sugar fractions, whereas a waxy corn line KVMON for total starch and amylopectin. Cluster analysis based on amylopectin, total sugar, and phytoglycogen was reliable to discriminate corn genotypes into seven major groups, and two sweet-waxy corn F1 hybrids 101LTSC-10/C13-1 and 101LTSC-10/KV3473 corresponding to our selection criteria were identified. Implications in plant breeding and suggestions for further investigations are discussed.