Abstracts of the XVIth EUCARPIA Congress, Edinburgh, Scotland, 10-14 September 2001
BREEDING FOR NUTRITIONAL QUALITY AND YIELD IN SILAGE MAIZE
J.G. COORS, R.D. SHAVER
University of Wisconsin, Madison, WI, 53706 USA
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'Plant
Breeding: Sustaining the Future'
Abstracts of the XVIth EUCARPIA Congress, Edinburgh, Scotland, 10-14 September 2001 BREEDING FOR NUTRITIONAL QUALITY AND YIELD IN SILAGE MAIZE J.G. COORS, R.D. SHAVER University of Wisconsin, Madison, WI, 53706 USA |
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The UW maize breeding program has a selection program to increase nutritional quality of silage. Our principal germplasm source for improved maize silage is the Wisconsin Quality Synthetic (WQS), which is from the Lancaster background. An S2-topcross recurrent selection protocol has been completed. The current selection method involves evaluation of topcross forage yield, dry matter, neutral detergent fiber (NDF), in vitro true digestibility, NDF digestibility, protein and starch. Based on these traits, milk production ton -1 and milk production acre-1 is used as a selection index combing both yield and quality.