Performance and Drought Resisting Group Classification of 43 Maize Varieties in the Arid Area of Turpan, Xinjiang

【Objective】 Based on the morphological indexs and yield indexes, this study aims to classify 43 maize varieties into different groups, and screen out the varieties which are suitable for planting in Xinjiang arid area. 【Methods】 With 43 maize varieties as test materials, 12 indicators, including plant height, high ear position, thick stem, single ears, ear length, thick ears, ears, heavy ears, grain weight, grain yield, fresh weight and stem and leaf dry weight, were determined under the condition of water deficit. The drought resistance performance of multiple maize varieties was comprehensively evaluated by relevant analysis, main component analysis, clustering analysis, gradual discrimination analysis and multi-variance analysis. 【Results】 Firstly, the results of the correlation analysis showed that there was a certain correlation and overlap of information between 12 quantitative traits,because 35 of these coefficients were extremely significantly correlated at P< 0.01 and 21 of them were significantly correlated at P< 0.05. Secondly, the results of the principal components analysis showed that the first three principal components represented 71.02% of the information which was the 12 quantitative traits of the 43 maize cultivars. The contribution rate was 27.49%, 27.41% and 16.12%, respectively. Among them, the first principal component is vegetative growth status, including plant height, ear position height, stem diameter and weight of stems and leaves;the second principal component was reproductive growth status, including the number of ears per plant, ear length, kernel weight per ear,100-kernels weight and Grain yield;the third principal component was rows per ear and ear diameter. Thirdly, the results of the hierarchical cluster analysis and multivariate analysis of variance showed that the 43 maize cultivars were clustered into five categories when the class separation distance was 4.5. Among the five categories,the second class belonged to high yield varieties, including 3 varieties; the third class belonged to medium and high yield varieties, including 7 varieties; the fourth class belonged to the middle class, including 10 varieties; the fifth class belonged to middle and low yield varieties, including 19 varieties; the first class belonged to the low yield variety, including 4 varieties. Finally,the results of the Stepwise discriminant analysis showed that the results of cluster analysis were accurate and reliable,because 42 maize cultivars were correctly discriminated, whose identification rate was 97.67% and 1maize cultivars were incorrectly discriminated, whose false identification rate was 2.33%. This indicates that the results of group classification are accurate and reliable. 【Conclusion】 The second class and the third class maize varieties can significantly increase the yield, which indicates that maize breeding in China has made obvious progress in drought resistance in recent years. In one crop a year cultivation pattern, late maturing varieties with the same latitude, such as Liaodan 145 and Liaodan 1211 should be introduced. In two crops a year cultivation pattern, the best maize variety was Zhengdan 958.