A Comparison Between Conventional Maize and Drought-Tolerant cultivars

Climate change poses significant challenges to global agriculture, particularly in regions vulnerable to water scarcity. This study investigates the performance of drought-tolerant maize hybrids compared to conventional hybrids under water-limited conditions, focusing on three main factors: FAO class (FC), water management (WM), and drought-tolerance genotype (DT). The experiment was conducted at the Lucio Toniolo Experimental Farm of Padua University, employing a randomized complete block design with three replicates. The results show that no significant difference in yield and biomass was obtained between the two genotypes of each FC. Instead, the FC showed a significant effect with higher FAO classes exhibiting increased yields (11.2 t DM ha-1 for FC 300, 11.8 t DM ha-1 for FC 400, 12.9 t DM ha-1 for FC 500). Interestingly, the drought-tolerant hybrids did exhibit higher transpiration rates than their counterparts during the last week of July (2.4 mm day-1 for Aquamax and 2.2 mm day-1 for conventional), highlighting that the drought-tolerant hybrids did have an altered use of water even though the yields remained similar at least at this stage. These findings highlight the complexity of breeding for drought tolerance and underscore the importance of integrating physiological traits such as growth cycle length with traditional breeding metrics.