ChileanJAR

A diallel cross including ten inbred lines of corn was seeded at La Platina Experimental Station, Instituto de Investigaciones Agropecuarias, in 1968 and 1969, to determine the relative importance of general combining ability (GCA) and specific combining ability(SCA) in the inheritance of yield and sorne yield components.
The experimental design was a 7 X 7 semibalanced squared lattice which included aIl the 45 possible hybrids and four commercialhybridsas controls. Duncan's Multiple Range Test was used to compare treatment means and combinig ability was studied foIlowing Griffing's Method 4, Model l.
Significant differences were found for GCA an SCA at the 1% level for aIl variables, except SCA for yield that was significant at the 5% level.
Estimates of the genetics components of variance indicated that additive genetics effects were, in general, more important than non-additive effects for aIl variables studied. Results showed that lines W22, PA83 and A257 reached the highest GCA effects. Line EC35 had the highest value for SCA variance.