<b>History of northern corn leaf blight disease in the seventh cycle of recurrent selection of an UENF-14 popcorn population

Resumo

To investigate the genetic resistance to northern corn leaf blight (Exserohilum turcicum) disease in the UENF-14 popcorn population and the inclusion of this trait in the analysis, two hundred ten popcorn half-sib families were evaluated using an incomplete block design with treatments arranged in replicates "Sets". Regarding the Families within "Set" (F/S) source of variation, enough genetic variability was found for northern corn leaf blight disease resistance to be explored in the next cycles of the UENF popcorn breeding program. The open-pollinated UENF-14 variety has a source of resistance to this disease in its genetic basis, given that it originated from crossing with an American cultivar with yellow grains that is resistant to disease. These results strengthen the possibility of selecting resistant families across the cycles, so it is concluded that the selection was effective at maintaining the balance in the occurrence of the disease in the study population and that the source of resistance is not lost with advancing cycles. The addition of the foliar disease variable in the analysis is of the utmost importance for the improvement of popcorn as it makes it possible to aggregate genes for resistance to this disease along with agronomic traits of interest.