Journal of Phytology 2022, 14: 95-99 doi: 10.25081/jp.2022.v14.7935 https://updatepublishing.com/journal/index.php/jp J Phytol • 2022 • Vol 14 95 INTRODUCTION Zea mays L. saccharata, known as sweet corn, is one of the most consumed vegetables in nations like the United States and Canada. It has also gained popularity in the urban market of India and other Asian nations. Sweet corn is consumed as a fresh and processed vegetable due to its sweet taste, tender nature, easy digestibility, and nutritional values (Mehta et al., 2017). Fresh sweet corn was first produced in the USA and has since been exported to several nations, where it has gained appeal as a preferred vegetable (Revilla et al., 2021). Corn is processed to lengthen its shelf life, but as a result, leaching or heat degradation might result in a large loss of nutrients (Singh et al., 2014). Corn gained the worldwide lead among the most significant grains produced, with a production output of 1.2 billion metric tonnes. The production volume of corn produced in India during 2021 was 30 million metric tonnes. This decreased compared to the previous year when the production volume of corn was about 32 million metric tonnes. The critical analysis of distribution properties by third-order statistics such as skewness and kurtosis, which are more important than first and second-order statistics that reveal only the interaction effects, is usually used to determine the nature of gene action and the number of genes controlling the trait (Rani et al., 2016). The frequency distribution is a graphical depiction of the number of individuals in each category on a measurement scale (Gravetter et al., 2020). The skewness is used to indicate the nature of gene action and to quantify the symmetry of the population, or more precisely, the lack of symmetry (Fisher et al., 1932). Kurtosis identifies the number of genes that control the feature and whether the data is left- or right-tailed in comparison to its normal distribution (Robson, 1956). The non-additive gene activity will be dominant, and the genotype affects the skewness of the distribution. Positive skewness is associated with Genetic variation of morphological and yield-related traits in backcrossed and selfed population of maize Iman Saha 1 , Krishnakumar Rathinavel 1 , Bharani Manoharan 2 , Adhimoolam Karthikeyan 3, Vellaikumar Sampathrajan 1 , Ravikesavan Rajasekaran 4 , Muthurajan Raveendran 1 , Natesan Senthil 2 * 1 Department of Plant Biotechnology, Centre for Plant Molecular Biology and Biotechnology, Tamil Nadu Agricultural University, Coimbatore - 641003, Tamil Nadu, India, 2 Department of Plant Molecular Biology and Bioinformatics, Centre for Plant Molecular Biology and Biotechnology, Tamil Nadu Agricultural University, Coimbatore - 641003, Tamil Nadu, India, 3 Department of Biotechnology, Agricultural College and Research Institute, Tamil Nadu Agricultural University, Madurai - 625104, Tamil Nadu, India, 4 Center for Plant Breeding and Genetics, Tamil Nadu Agricultural University, Coimbatore - 641003, India ISSN: 2075-6240 Copyright: © The authors. This article is open access and licensed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) which permits unrestricted, use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, or format for any purpose, even commercially provided the work is properly cited. Attribution — You must give appropriate credit, provide a link to the license, and indicate if changes were made. Research Article ABSTRACT The number of genes controlling the morphological and yield-related traits and their mode of action plays a vital role in selecting traits and favourable progenies in a segregating population. In this study, we analysed the skewness and kurtosis in the backcrossed and selfed populations of SC11-2×UMI1230β1 + . Negative skewness refers to redundant gene activity, positive skewness is connected to complementary gene action. Positive kurtosis suggests the existence of gene activity controlled by a smaller number of genes. Negative kurtosis shows a lack of gene activity and is controlled by a large number of genes. The BC 2 F 2 population of plant height and single plant yield showed positive skewness and platykurtic distribution, suggesting that the genes were governed by complementary gene action and controlled by the large number of genes. This implied need for rigorous selection to achieve a genetic gain in later generations. Cob length and kernel weight showed a duplicate gene action which implied that mild selection can fix these traits and accelerate genetic gain. Keywords: backcross population, gene action, skewness, kurtosis, selection. Received: May 23, 2022 Revised: September 02, 2022 Accepted: September 03, 2022 Published: September 21, 2022 *Corresponding Authors: Natesan Senthil E-mail: senthil_natesan@tnau. ac.in