ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Plant Sci.
Sec. Plant Abiotic Stress
Volume 16 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fpls.2025.1672228
This article is part of the Research TopicAdvanced Breeding for Abiotic Stress Tolerance in Crops, Volume IIView all 22 articles
Comprehensive Evaluation and Screening of Drought Resistance in Maize at Germination and Seedling Stages
Provisionally accepted
- Tarim University, Alar, Xinjiang, China
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(1) Background: Maize is one of the world’s most important food crops, and drought stress has become one of the primary abiotic stresses limiting maize production. Therefore, screening drought-tolerant maize germplasm is of great significance for production. (2) Methods: In this study, drought stress was applied during the germination and seedling stages of maize. Fifteen traits, including germination rate, germination potential, plumule length, plant height, and chlorophyll content, were used to evaluate drought resistance comprehensively via drought resistance indices. (3) Results: Drought stress reduced the germination rate, germination potential, and germination index of maize seeds, and inhibited the growth of plumule and radicle lengths. Meanwhile, it affected seedling growth, primarily manifested as decreased plant height, reduced chlorophyll content, and inhibited biomass accumulation. Correlation analysis showed varying degrees of correlation among the drought resistance indices of the 15 traits. Principal component analysis (PCA) reduced 15 drought resistance indices to 5 comprehensive indices, with a cumulative variance contribution rate of 75.22%.Stepwise regression analysis derived the regression equation: D = -0.002 + 0.13×GEI + 0.938×RFWI + 0.115×RLI + 0.112×DWPI + 0.097×CHLI. Based on the D values, cluster analysis categorized 41 maize germplasm resources into five groups: extremely drought-tolerant, strong drought-tolerant, moderately drought-tolerant, drought-sensitive, and highly drought-sensitive. The extremely drought-tolerant materials included Yuanyuan 1, Ximon 6, Jinongyu 309, Nongkeyu 368, Xuanhe 8, Hengyu369, and Nongfu99. The results provide a theoretical basis for drought-tolerant maize breeding and identification of drought-resistant genotypes.
Keywords: Maize, Germination stage, Seedling stage, drought resistance, screening
Received: 24 Jul 2025; Accepted: 18 Aug 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Du, Zhang, Zhang, Hu, Tian, Ying, Ding and Dan. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence:
Wentao Du, Tarim University, Alar, Xinjiang, China
Zhang Dan, Tarim University, Alar, Xinjiang, China
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