PERTANIKA JOURNAL OF TROPICAL AGRICULTURAL SCIENCE

The study had two objectives, a) to determine the interrelationship among yield and stalk crushingstrength in two maize synthetics that had undergone six cycles of recurrent selection (C6) for high stalk crushing strength and b) to compare the relative effectiveness of cyclic selection on individual plant (S0) versus progeny (S1 lines) performance in the above two maize synthetics.The base materials were the C0S1 from M0SQA, white endosperm and M0SQB, yellow endosperm. The results showed low correlations between grain yield and stalk crushing strength in all populations involving S1 progeny selection. Thus, it should be possible to breed maize with good stalk quality without substantial loss in grain yield. S1 line selection was more effective in increasing stalk crushing strength than individual (S0) plant selection. However, the former required three generations while the latter required only two.