Correlation of yield and heterosis of maize hybrids and their parental lines with genetic distance based on SSR markers

The yield, grain yield heterosis and genetic distance based on SSR markers were analyzed in eight maize hybrids and their parental lines. The mean grain yield of all F1 hybrids was 11.37 tha-1. The F1 hybrid from the crosses between L4xL6 gave the highest grain yield of 12.12 tha-1. For the mid parent heterosis (MPH) grain yields of the F1 hybrids, the data showed the average value of 164.25%, and ranged from 136.72% (L4xL6) to 218.07% (L8xL2), and for better parent heterosis (BPH) from 100.70% (H4) to 212.60% (H2), averaged 137.36%. The average genetic distance among parental inbred lines of analyzed hybrids was 0.58 with a range from 0.55 to 0.61. The GD showed a positive correlation with the grain yield of the F1 hybrids (0.22), as well as with MPH and BPH, with the values of 0.12 and 0.45, respectively.