Potential advantages of male-sterile F-1 hybrids for use as seed parents of three-way hybrids in pearl millet

Nine male-sterile F-1 hybrids, developed from crosses between A-lines and d istantly related maintainer lines (B-lines) and intended for use as seed pa rents of three-way hybrids, were compared with their 10 inbred parental lin es across 11 year-location environments in India. The F-1 hybrids from cros ses between A-lines and more distantly related B-lines yielded 64- 107% mor e than their respective higher-yielding inbred seed parents. Such high grai n yields were achieved even in those F-1 seed parents that were as early in maturity as their earlier-maturing inbred seed parents. Thus, flowering of high-yielding but the otherwise late maturing inbred seed parents can be m odified in F-1 seed parents such that the latter can be used to produce see d of early maturing three-way hybrids without any need for staggering with the early maturing pollen parents. The dominant nature of downy mildew resi stance observed in this study indicated that F-1 seed parents can help salv age and extend the commercial viability of promising inbred seed parents th at might have become susceptible during long-term and large scale deploymen t. F-1 seed-parent technology provides more cost-effective and more predict able seed production than is possible with inbred seed parents. It also pro vides for more effective manipulation of flowering of the later-maturing in bred seed parents towards earliness and better downy mildew disease managem ent. (C) 2000 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.