CORRELATION AND PATH COEFFICIENT ANALYSIS OF MAIZE (Zea mays L.) GRAIN YIELD AND YIELD CHARACTERS IN ANYIGBA, KOGI STATE

Five varieties of maize (Zea mays) made up of two open pollinated and three hybrids were grown at Kogi State University student research and demonstration farm Anyigba, (Lat 7° 291 and Long 70 111E) which lies in the Guinea savanna agro ecological zone during the raining season of 2014 to determine the contributions of various yield components to the final grain yield of the crop. The experiment was laid in a Randomized Complete Block Design (RCBD) with four replications. In the trial, it was found that yield characters such as number of seed/cob, cob length, cob/plant, and 100-seed weight exerted much influence on the seed yield and was found to be significantly (p≤0.05) and positively associated with seed yield/plot. However the number of seed/cob and cob length contributed 69% (0.832) and 74% (0.862) respectively to the total seed yield variations. The path coefficient analysis indicates that cob length exert the strongest influence (1.70) on grain yield followed by the number of seed/cob (1.50) and 100-seed weight (1.00).