TY - EJOU AU - Ibarra-Sánchez, Alejandro AU - Rodríguez-Pérez, Juan Enrique AU - Peña-Lomelí, Aureliano AU - Villanueva-Verduzco, Clemente AU - Sahagún-Castellanos, Jaime TI - General and Exact Inbreeding Coefficient of Maize Synthetics Derived from Three-Way Line Hybrids T2 - Phyton-International Journal of Experimental Botany PY - 2022 VL - 91 IS - 1 SN - 1851-5657 AB - Synthetic varieties (SVs) are populations generated by randomly mating their parents. They are a good alternative for low-input farmers who grow onions, maize, and other allogamous crops since the seed produced by a SV does not change from one generation to the next. Although SV progenitors are commonly pure lines, in this case a synthetic (SynTC) whose parents are t three-way line crosses, a very common type of maize hybrid grown in Mexico, is studied. The aim was to develop a general and exact equation for the inbreeding coefficient of a SynTC SynTC because of its relationship with the mean of economically important traits. This objective arose due to the need for a more advanced study in terms of determining whether SynTC can be applied specifically and accurately for any number of parents (t), plants per parent (m) and inbreeding coefficient (IC) of the initial lines (FL). A formula for the IC of the SynTC was derived that, given any values of FL (0 ≤ FL ≤ 1) and t, is specific for any value of m, not just for “large” numbers associated with the context in which the Hardy-Weinberg law is stated. It was found that SynTC is very sensitive to changes in m when m is not greater than eight, after which it tends to stabilize very quickly. In summary, unlike previously derived formulas, SynTC is exact for any values of t, m and FL. KW - Genotypic array; genotypic mean; hybrid; random mating; Zea mays DO - 10.32604/phyton.2022.016136