Performance of selected maize inbred lines to drought stress

Drought stress limits maize production. We studied the drought stress tolerance level of maize inbred lines to select potential parental lines for hybrid production. Glasshouse scale pot experiment was arranged in Completely Randomized Design with eight inbred lines as the treatment. Each inbred line was placed in two conditions; normal and drought stress with three replications. Drought stress condition was achieved by suspending water supply when 50% of the plants had approached V11 phase where maize has grown 11 open leaves, until one plant in the same inbred lines shown heavy withered response. Results showed that line of Gg44 consistently revealed the lowest increase of leaf rolling score (3.8%), the lowest reduction of plant height (3.9%) and plant top dry weight (2.3%) on drought stress condition. The line of Gg44 also produced the lowest stress sensitivity indices (SSI) and the highest stress tolerance indices (STI) for these three traits indicating high tolerance of the line to drought stress. Hence, the line has the potential use in producing maize hybrids that are able to alleviate the negative impacts of drought and high temperature on its growth.