Morphological Diversity of Corn’s (Zea mays L.) Local Cultivar and Improved Varieties in Central and North of Benin

摘要

The better knowledge of a plant genetic biodiversity is based on a prior study of its agro-morphological characteristics. The objective of this study was to investigate the morphological diversity of maize accessions and its structure on the basis of 14 variables. For the experimentation, 43 and 98 maize accessions were planted in three replicates respectively in central and northern Benin following an incomplete randomized block. The mixed model analysis of two factors variance revealed a significant difference for all accessions considering each agro-morphological characteristic evaluated except the germination day of two areas seed accessions. The numerical classification grouped the accessions into four groups in each zone. The stepwise discriminant analysis showed that early characters related to plant height and ear insertion were the variables that discriminated accessions in both zones. Maturity and recovery ears, sensitivity to streak and the germination days are the variables that discriminate accessions of the two areas. These results provide a database for the creation of improved maize varieties that meet the needs of producers