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Annals of Botany 37: 539-552, 1973
© 1973 Annals of Botany Company

RESEARCH-ARTICLE

An Analysis of the Components of Growth which Determine the Course of Development under Field Conditions of Selected Inbreds and their Hybrids of Zea mays

H. D. VOLDENG1 and G. E. BLACKMAN2

Department of Agricultural Science, University of Oxford
1 Research Station, Canadian Department of Agriculture Ottawa, Canada
2 Department of Forestry, University of Oxford

Received: 21 August 1972   

The comparative performance at different stages of development of a flint and a dent-type hybrid, their parental inlines, and reciprocal double-crosses have been examined in field or pot experiments employing the concepts of growth analysis. To minimize sampling errors, where observations in the field extended to maturity, growth functions of the Bertalanffy type were fitted to the data of each genotype.

The results emphasize that, contrary to some earlier postulates, the growth factors involved in the expression of hybrid vigour are highly complex. It is clear that there are interactions between stage of development, environmental conditions, and genotype. Between emergence and maturity the relative growth rates (RGR) of the first crosses exceed those of parental lines from time to time but are not consistently greater over the whole season. For the triplets examined the hybrid tends to gain weight and leaf area fastest in the early post-emergence phase but later may be surpassed by one or other of the parents for varying and sometimes intermittent intervals. The enhanced RGR of the hybrid can mainly be ascribed to a higher net assimilation rate (NAR) since hybridization seldom appreciably increases, and then only initially, the order of the other primary component of growth, the leaf-area ratio (LAR). Indeed, with age a greater fall in the LAR of the hybrid can depress its comparative performance. The higher LARs of the inbreds are determined by the leaf-weight ratios rather than by the ratios of leaf area to leaf weight. The RGRs and less so the RLGRs of the double reciprocal crosses are higher than those of the single-crosses but the differences are small.


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