Comparism of Yield Potential of Hybrids and Open Pollinated Varieties of Maize Seeds in Northern Guinea Savanna Alfisols, North-West Nigeria

A two year study was conducted on maize (Zea mays L.) at the I.A.R farm, Samaru, Zaria, Nigeria, during 2013 and 2014 cropping season. The objective was to investigate the yield potentials of hybrids and OPV maize varieties under the same management condition. The experiment consisted of six maize varieties as the treatments, this includes; four hybrid seeds from some selected seed companies in North-western Region and two open pollinated varieties from I.A.R. The treatments were laid out in a randomized complete block design with four replicates. The results showed that all the six varieties of seeds were good planting materials, with highest disease incidence of 0.5 (mean across treatments) in 2014 for Mr-White from Manoma seed company and highest mean value of off-types (0.75) from the hybrid seeds. Hybrid maize from Maslaha seed company (SDM-1) out yielded all other varieties in both 2013, 2014 and combine (4490.0Kgha-1, 5210.2 Kgha-1 and 4850.1 Kgha-1) respectively, while a hybrid seed- NG-Samaru had the least yield in both 2013, 2014 and combine (2586.7Kgha-1, 3632.4 Kgha-1 and 3109.6 Kgha-1) compared to open pollinated varieties from I.A.R (Sammaz 14 and Sammaz 34).