Heritability and Effects of Some Characters on Silage Yield in Dent Corn Varieties (Zea Mays indentata Sturt.) Grown Under Drought Conditions

This research was carried out in a farm situated in Malkara District of Tekirdag Province (Turkey) in 1994-95, and the effect of genotype and environmental conditions on some characters and variations of these characters in terms of silage yield in 8 dent corn varieties were determined. The results of this research showed that leaf weight, stem diameter, and silage yield had a low broad sense heritability while the number of leaves per plant had a high heritability. Yield performance of varieties varied to a significant degree because of variations in rainfall rate during the growing periods. Leaf number, silage yield, leaf weight, stem diameter, plant height and ear weight varied between 13.33-17.33 number, 8,443-11,114 ton/hec, 152.8-244.2 g, 2,615-2,965 cm, 216.5-252.5 g and 176.2-285.8 g, respectively.