What was it all about?

Sweetcorn is grown in diverse growing environments and seasons that require different hybrids to meet grower needs. This project undertook preliminary work to develop parental lines that could be used to create commercially useful hybrids of sweetcorn.

In addition to differing agronomic and quality traits, including smaller plant stature and faster flowering, researchers worked to ensure that new varieties were resistant to two diseases, Johnson grass mosaic virus and maize dwarf mosaic virus.

After crossing tropical and temperate parental lines, a series of 21 new inbred lines with the desired features were developed. Quick flowering, smaller stature, improved cob appearance, kernel colour and tenderness were introduced from temperate germplasm, coupled with the tropical characteristics of excellent resistance to the targeted viruses as well as polysora rust, and northern corn blight.

The new lines are ready for evaluation in field trials in the major sweetcorn production environments.