Genetic Purity Assessment of Maize Hybrid (Zea mays L.) and Its Parental Lines Employing SSR Markers

The success of hybrid seed production is determined by the genetic purity of parental lines. Hence, genetic purity testing of parental lines and hybrid is essential to verify any deviation from genuineness of the genotypes during multiplication and seed production programme. In order to check the genetic purity of parental lines of recently released maize hybrid MAH 15-84, an investigation was carried out to identify an ideal SSR marker for confirmation of hybridity of maize hybrid and its parental lines. The maize hybrid MAH 15-84 and the parents MAI-19-117 (female) and MAI-19-20 (male) were subjected to genetic purity testing employing twenty-one SSRs to identify the polymorphic marker to distinguish parental lines and hybridity confirmation. Among twenty-one primers, five primers namely umc1152, bnlg1371, bnlg1043, umc2071 and bnlg107 showed polymorphism between the parental lines and rest of primers exhibited monomorphic banding pattern. The unique banding pattern of these five primers revealed the presence of the PCR amplified products present in the female as well as the male parent, indicating the true hybridity.