RFLP ANALYSES OF EARLY-MATURING EUROPEAN MAIZE GERMPLASM .2. CORRELATION BETWEEN RFLP AND PEDIGREE DATA

Hybrid breeding in maize requires information about the genetic relati onship among inbred lines to avoid crosses between related lines. In t he past, genetic dissimilarity was mainly estimated by calculating the coefficent of coancenstry (f). However, estimates of f may not always reflect the true relationship between lines due to selection and/or r andom genetic drift during line development. In this study, we investi gated the correlation between RFLP-based estimates of genetic similari ty (GS) and f for a set of 13 European flint lines and 6 European dent lines. Simple correlations between the two measures of genetic relati onship were tight (r(p) = 0.80) for 56 related (f>0) pairs of flint li nes and moderate (r(p) = 0.65) for 15 related pairs of dent lines. We conclude that GS and f provide similar results in determining genetic relationships. Hence, they are both suitable for excluding inferior cr osses between related lines and for plant variety protection.