Reciprocal recurrent selection in maize full sibling families

Maize is the world's main agricultural crop and future projections show that it will continue to be the most important cereal. As far as plant breeding is concerned, one of the most efficient methods has been recurrent selection as a strategy for obtaining continuous genetic gains. With this in mind, in 2014 the Federal Institute of Espírito Santo Campus Itapina began a genetic improvement programme for maize via interpopulation reciprocal recurrent selection in complete sibling families. This project is a pioneer in this respect and aims to make new interpopulation maize hybrids available to the north-western region of Espírito Santos in the future.