Selection of parents for low nitrogen stress through the combining ability of maize partially inbred lines

ABSTRACT. The objective of this work was to estimate the general combining ability of partially inbred lines under high and low nitrogen (N) conditions and to select promising lines to obtain high yields for both conditions. Fifty-five partially inbred S1 progenies were evaluated using the top-cross method, where the lines were crossed with two testers. The 110 top-cross hybrids were evaluated for grain yield during the off-season of 2012 at two sites in the Brazilian Midwest. Partial diallel analysis was performed with the adjusted means of each of the individual analyses of the top crosses. ...