Maize is one of the most planted crops in Nigeria and it accounts for the largest share of the country’s coarse grain production. Maize farming is carried out in nearly all the geographical zones in Nigeria. However, the bulk of the country’s maize production is concentrated in Kaduna, Katsina, Niger, Plateau, Taraba, Kano and Oyo. These maize producing states accounts for nearly two-third (64%) of maize produced in Nigeria. Current maize yield averages 1.7 t/ha and is barely sufficient for the region’s requirements due to drought, striga infestation and low N stresses. The objective of this study was to compare new stress tolerant maize hybrids and open pollinated varieties (OPVs) against the best released commercial varieties in Nigeria using farmer participatory approach and to validate on-station results. Maize varieties were simultaneously selected on-station from the different agro-ecology in Nigeria during the 2019/2020 and 2020/2021 seasons. During the season, 12 promising stress tolerant maize hybrids and OPVs among which are extra-early, early and intermediate were selected from the on-station based on their mean grain yield and stability. These selected varieties were compared with the best commercial check varieties on-farm across locations in Nigeria in a randomized complete block design. The genotype + genotype x environment comparison biplot showed hybrid AS1909-5, EWTH-14 together with other new stress tolerant hybrids and OPVs to be stable and high yielding on-station across locations compared to the commonly grown checks. This indicated that hybrid AS1909-5 and EWTH-14 possesses beneficial alleles that contributed to the observed superior performance when compared to the other hybrids.The new stress tolerant hybrids showed a yield advantage over the commercial check varieties both in the extra-early, early and the intermediate maturing categories, and the gains were bigger under stress conditions. Under farmers’ fields, DT STR Syn/TZL Comp.-W, 2015 DTE STR-Y Syn, AS1909-5, AS2001-16, EWTH-14 and EEPVAH-95 were high yielding and stable across locations and recommended for release.

Stress tolerance, Grain Yield, Variety, On-farm

agronomy

Presentation: poster