Hwan-Hee Bae, Seong-hyu Shin, Young-Sam Go, Jun Young Ha, Yoo-Chan Choi, Jae-Han Son, Tae-Wook Jung, Seong-Bum Baek, Jung-Tae Kim, Jin-Seok Lee, Beom-young Son, Ki-Young Kim
Korean. J. Breed. Sci. 2021;53(2):140-144. Published online June 1, 2021
‘KM2’, a maize hybrid grain was developed for the Southeast Asian seed market by the maize breeding team of the Rural Development Administration (RDA), South Korea 2018. ‘KM2’ was bred by crossing two inbred lines, ‘15VL065’ and ‘KS155’. After a advanced yield trial at Dong Trieu, Vietnam, for the first cropping cycle in 2016, country adaptability trials were performed twice in three different countries: Vietnam, Cambodia, and Indonesia, in 2016 and 2017. ‘KM2’, a yellow intermediate seed for food and feed, adapts well to the northern Vietnam, northwestern Cambodia, and Central Java in Indonesia. It is an early maturing high-grain yield F1 hybrid. This hybrid is resistant to downy mildew, but not corn rust. The silking date of ‘KM2’ is 10 days earlier than that of ‘LVN10’, a leading cultivar in Vietnam. ‘KM2’ produced grain yields of 811 kg/10a, 845 kg/10a, and 783 kg/10a in Vietnam, Cambodia, and Indonesia, respectively, showing even higher grain yield than the countries’ respective leading cultivar. ‘KM2’ produced 61%, 17%, and 14% higher grain yield in Vietnam, Cambodia, and Indonesia, respectively, than their respective control cultivars (‘LVN10’, ‘CP888’, ‘P21’) (Registration No. 8192).