Shalimar Maize Hybrid 4, a Most Promising Hybrid for High Altitude Ecologies of Kashmir Valley

Maize is one of the most important cereal crops of Kashmir Valley where it serves as a source of food, feed, fodder and industrial raw material, providing enormous opportunity for crop diversification, value addition and employment generation. However, the average productivity of maize in Kashmir Valley is quite low (1.5 t ha-1) when compared to the national productivity (2.5 t ha-1). The development, dissemination and adoption of high yielding, early maturity, cold tolerant maize hybrids can serve as the most economical, effective and coherent approach to contribute significantly towards increasing maize production in Kashmir Valley. A single cross hybrid SMH4 (Shalimar Maize Hybrid 4) has been developed to enhance the maize productivity in high altitude agro-ecologies of the Valley. SMH4 possesses very high yield potential of about 7.0-8.2 t ha-1 compared to 2.5-4.0 t ha-1 as realised by the predominantly grown landraces in hilly agro-ecosystems. The hybrid revealed the grain yield superiority of about 23.61% and the stover yield superiority of about 15.77% over the commercial check viz., Shalimar maize Hybrid 1. The variety is resistant to Turcicum leaf blight and common rust, besides showing resistance to stem borers and cut worms. SMH4 has a very good acceptability by farmers for its high yield potential (both grain and fodder), better seedling vigour and early maturity. SMH4 with the traits like cold tolerance and early maturity can play a potential role in enhancing the economy of maize growers under high altitude ecologies of Kashmir Valley. The development, upscaling and mass adoption of SMH4 in temperate agro-ecologies will lead to socio-economic upliftment of small and marginal farmers through increase in production, productivity and farm profitability.