Rajkumar U. Zunjare, Vignesh Muthusamy, Gulab Chand, Ashvinkumar Katral, Rashmi Chhabra, Saikat Pal, Ravindra Kumar Kasana, R. K. Khulbe, Mehar Chand Kamboj, Sunil Neelam, H.S. Jat, Firoz Hossain
BACKGROUND: Baby corn has emerged as a new high-value vegetable that offers excellent economic benefits to farmers along with exceptional silage for livestock. Cytoplasmic male sterility (CMS) provides an effective alternative to manual detasseling which is otherwise essential in baby corn farming. RESULTS: Here we identified, validated, and deployed CMS-Texas (CMS-T), CMS-Charrua (CMS-C), and CMS-USDA (CMS-S) systems to the development of male sterile baby corn hybrids. Markers (T-urf13, orf355-orf77 and atp6-atp9) specific to three CMS cytoplasm were employed to differentiate CMS types. CMS systems were further introgressed into 11 elite inbreds. CMS-T revealed complete and stable pollen sterility, followed by CMS-C. Whereas CMS-S exhibited partial to complete fertility restoration. CMS-T based ABSH4-1 was later commercialized as 'Pusa HM4 Male Sterile Baby Corn (Shishu)'. It recorded a dehusked baby corn yield (BCY) of 2274 kg/ha while the original fertile version, HM4 possessed BCY of 2192 kg/ha across the five locations for the 2 years. ABSH4-2 with C-cytoplasm was further commercialized as 'Pusa HM4 Male Sterile Baby Corn-2', and exhibited BCY of 1655 kg/ha with similar BCY of HM4 across the 20 locations for the 2 years. Both hybrids showed complete male sterility across locations. ABHS-27, a CMS-T version of CMVL Baby Corn-2, also demonstrated stable sterility performance with BCY of 2137 kg/ha across five locations and 2 years, and released as as 'Pusa Male Sterile Baby Corn-3'. CONCLUSION: The study highlighted the successful development, characterization, multi-location evaluation and commercial cultivation of CMS-based baby corn hybrids. © 2025 Society of Chemical Industry.