Assessment of Yield and Nutritional Qualities of Local and Improved Maize Varieties Cultivated in Wukari and Environement of the Nigerian Guinea Savanna Agro-Ecology

Abstract

Two varieties of maize (quality protein and local) were cultivated and evaluated for nutritional qualities, agronomic traits performance and yield during the 2016 and 2017 cropping seasons at the Teaching and Research Farm of the Federal University Wukari. Wukari is situated on latitude 7 0 52’17.00 0 N and longitude 9 0 46’40.30 0 E. It falls within the guinea savannah of North-eastern Nigeria with the annual rainfall of 1058mm-1300mm and relative humidity dropping to about 15%, alongside an annual temperature of 28 0 C and 30 0 C. Its characteristic alfisol soil is clay enriched, with subsoil that has relatively high native fertility. Pollination was controlled in order to conserve the genetic purity of the two varieties. Data obtained were subjected to analysis of variance (at p ≤ 0.05), using the 23 rd edition of SPSS. Statistical analysis revealed significant differences among the varieties for grain yield, nutritional content, days to tasseling, days to silking, plant height at six weeks after planting, number of seed rows, number of nodes, seed length, hundred seed weight (g) and ear heights. Oba super 2 showed superiority (31.75g) over the local variety for seed yield (100 seed weight). Crude protein concentration in the two varieties varied significantly, with the local maize variety recording a higher value (7.21%).