Divergência genética e desempenho agronômico de cultivares de Milho verde, no Sul do Tocantins

Abstract

The corn crop is one of the most important in Brazil, being produced in almost the entire national territory. It can be used both for human and animal food. In human food, corn can be consumed while still green, as curd, juice, roasted, and as an ingredient in many different dishes. Therefore, there are still few studies on green corn in the northern region of the country. In view of the above, the present work aimed to study the genetic divergence and the agronomic performance of green corn cultivars in the south of Tocantins. The experiment was conducted at the Federal University of Tocantins (UFT), Gurupi Campus. The randomized block design was used, with ten treatments and three repetitions, where the treatments are represented by ten corn cultivars. The characteristics used to evaluate the agronomic performance and genetic divergence were: kernels per row, number of rows per ear, ear length with straw (cm), ear diameter with straw (mm), ear length without straw (cm), ear diameter without straw (mm), plant height (cm), ear height (cm), average ear weight with straw (kg), average ear weight without straw (kg), green corn yield with straw (kg ha-1), green corn yield without straw (kg ha-1), pH and BRIX. Cultivars were separated in multivariate model into two groups using Tocher optimization method. The cultivar AG 8088 showed better agronomic performance. The genetic divergence results were according to the generalized Mahalanobis distance (D²), the promising combinations for obtaining strains are between the cultivars AG 8088 x CATIVERDE and ORION x AG 8088.