The effect of drought stress on physiological responses of maize plants originating from seeds of different ages

Sweet corn is considered as tasty and quality food. Its kernels contain sugars that are in good balance with amino acids, minerals and vitamin B. It is used as fresh product right after the harvest, but also for further industrial processing, freezing and canning. In breeding of sweet corn, equal attention is paid to the production of high and stable yielding hybrids, and to the enhancement of technological and sensory properties of the ear and kernel. The aim of this research was to establish agronomic and sensory properties of 12 sweet corn hybrids, 3 commercial and 9 experimental. The trial was set up according to the RCBD on two locations and in three replicates. The evaluation of agronomic parameters encompassed: fresh ear yield without husk, ear length, number of kernel rows and shelling percentage. Also, sensory characteristics were analyzed: appearance, color, smell, sweetness, juiciness, crispiness, pericarp hardness. Sensory characteristics were evaluated by voluntary panelists and scaled with 1 – 9 point hedonic scale. Fresh ear yield significantly varied over locations and hybrids. The highest fresh ear yield had experimental hybrid ZP 481/1su – 13.33 t ha-1, while the lowest was 7.14 t ha-1 (ZP504su). The difference between sensory characteristics among hybrids was also noticed, although all hybrids had satisfactory sensory characteristics with the average sensory marks above 7.30/9.00. The best sweet corn hybrid according to sensory characteristics was ZP 483/1su (8.29), while the highest yielding one ZP 481/1su had an average sensory mark 7.70.