G rm Rationale Maize or corn is a cereal with ears consisting of either white, yellow or rust coloured grains, rich in starch, which are attached to a cob protected by layers of fibrous leaves. The way in which maize is processed and consumed varies greatly from country to country, maize flour and maize meal being two of the most popular products. For maize meal, the whole grain is ground into ...

This study was designed to compare the uptake and distribution of (14)C among fructose, glucose, sucrose, and starch in the cob, pedicel, and endosperm tissues of maize (Zea mays L.) kernels induced to abort by high temperature with those that develop normally. Kernels cultured in vitro at 30 and 35 degrees C were transferred to [(14)C]sucrose media 10 days after pollination. Kernels cultured a...

The effects of non-enzymatic antioxidative compounds such as ascorbic acid, thiamine HCl and β-carotene were investigated on salt stressed maize plants. The maize plants were sprayed with 100 mg L of ascorbic acid, thiamine or β-carotene solutions once a week, up to harvesting of plants. The treatment of NaCl was initiated 25 days after sowing by irrigating the plants with 125 mM NaCl solution....

Kernels at the ear tip of field grown maize (Zea mays L.) often abort during flowering, resulting in significant yield loss. The objective of this study was to determine if abortion is initiated by an inadequate supply of carbohydrates for growth of ear tip kernels, and/or by a hormonal signal. Field grown maize plants were either unshaded or shaded during flowering to increase kernel abortion....

A field experiment and a laboratory experiment were conducted in 2011 to determine the effect of intensity of defoliation on yield of maize (Zea mays). The field experiment included seven defoliation intensities (0, 2, 4, 6, 8, 10 and whole leaves per plant) from top to bottom leaves. Seeds of the field experiment were used for the laboratory experiment. In the laboratory experiment, germinatio...

The complex evolutionary history of maize (Zea mays L. ssp. mays) has been clarified with genomic-level data from modern landraces and wild teosinte grasses [1, 2], augmenting archaeological findings that suggest domestication occurred between 10,000 and 6,250 years ago in southern Mexico [3, 4]. Maize rapidly evolved under human selection, leading to conspicuous phenotypic transformations, as ...

Given that the majority of maize farmers in Kenya are small-scale, improvement in maize production must focus on increased production per unit area. While hybrid maize varieties outperform local open pollinated varieties under conventional farming practices, their relative performance has not been tested under small-scale intensive production practices. A study was conducted in 2013 in Kitale, ...

The maize (Zea mays) p1 (for pericarp color1) gene encodes an R2R3 Myb-like transcription factor that regulates the flavonoid biosynthetic pathway in floral organs, most notably kernel pericarp and cob. Alleles of the p1 gene condition distinct tissue-specific pigmentation patterns; to elucidate the molecular basis of these allele-specific expression patterns, we characterized two novel P1-rw (...

BACKGROUND The pericarp color1 (p1) gene encodes for a myb-homologous protein that regulates the biosynthesis of brick-red flavonoid pigments called phlobahpenes. The pattern of pigmentation on the pericarp and cob glumes depends upon the allelic constitution at the p1 locus. p1 alleles have unique gene structure and copy number which have been proposed to influence the epigenetic regulation of...