The Maize National Performance Trials (NPT) in Kenya represent the final official evaluation stage of maize variety development before release. The main objective of these trials is to compare under similar conditions grain yield and other agronomic characters of promising maize varieties from different breeders using commercial varieties as checks to ensure that only the best of the new varieties are released to farmers. From these trials, the Kenya Seed Company had five hybrids released in 1995. Trial results for three of these hybrids are reported. From the medium maturity maize NPT category, Hybrid 92MI was released as H513. This hybrid outyielded the local check, H512 by 18.68% after 3 years of testing in 23 environments. From the lowland set, H89P2SR was released after six years of testing as Pwani hybrid 4 (PH4). The hybrid outyielded PH1 by 13.62% in over 20 environments. For the high potential areas, H9102 was released as H627 after four years of testing in the late maturity maize NPT in over 20 environments. The hybrid outyielded the better check H626 by 8.6%. This hybrid was additionally found to be more resistant to highland blight and rust compared to H626 and H614D. These results indicated significant genetic gains in grain yield which would raise farmers benefits in maize production. At the lowland and mid-altitude sites the main abiotic stresses responsible for low yields were drought and low soil fertility while in the highlands biotic stresses particularly foliar, stem and ear-rot diseases were more important.

English

9712|AGRIS 9702

Jose Juan Caballero

CIMMYT Publications Collection