Table 2.

Seedling root traits in the two parental lines and the RIL population

Root trait	Timea	Zong3	Yu87–1	Significance	RILs		h2(%)c
	(dag)	Mean	Mean	levelb	Mean	Range
PRL (cm)	4	7.80	5.94	**	8.53	4.89–12.43	87.6
	9	15.96	14.94	*	17.55	11.73–22.30	84.2
	14	20.40	17.17	**	21.95	16.82–28.63	75.5
PSC	4	3.07	4.27	**	4.21	1.83–7.67	88.8
	9	5.80	7.73	**	8.58	3.82–13.67	83.6
	14	11.40	12.80	**	9.75	5.50–14.75	83.1
LRN	4	3.60	4.53	NS	7.51	0.39–17.06	87.8
	9	46.87	34.87	**	60.56	22.04–166.26	89.4
	14	123.67	49.67	**	104.44	41.00–187.75	91.3
RTN	4	6.67	9.00	**	11.72	3.73–21.6	90.2
	9	52.60	42.60	**	69.14	26.44–174.90	89.9
	14	135.07	62.53	**	114.19	50.6–198.2	91.6
TRL (cm)	4	14.85	14.31	NS	21.56	6.86–37.17	91.3
	9	66.20	53.03	**	90.51	42.16–156.88	91.1
	14	178.89	99.86	**	160.31	76.91–244.25	93.3
RSA (cm2)	4	6.48	5.44	NS	6.08	1.93–11.57	92.9
	9	21.08	18.10	*	29.98	11.15–54.31	92.6
	14	50.91	31.22	**	55.14	22.39–91.64	91.9
TRV (cm3)	4	0.29	0.16	**	0.14	0.04–0.26	89.9
	9	0.54	0.42	*	0.81	0.22–1.71	90.6
	14	1.12	0.84	**	1.53	0.52–2.77	87.9
ARD (mm)	4	1.45	1.19	**	0.90	0.57–1.20	87.9
	9	0.98	1.05	*	1.06	0.73–1.38	89.9
	14	0.88	1.05	**	1.08	0.79–1.34	90.2

^aThe time-points for seedling root trait evaluation: 4 days after germination (dag), 9 dag, and 14 dag

^bThe level of statistical significance of differences between two maize genotypes analyzed by t-test: NS, not significant; *, significant at P < 0.05; **, significant at P < 0.01

^cBroad-sense heritability detected