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Drought is one of the major abiotic stress affecting maize production. In order to detect drought tolerant maize inbred lines, an experiment with hundred homozygous inbred lines was conducted during Kharief 2013 and 2014 in factorial randomized block design with two replications, under different moisture management condition. Results showed diversity among the lines in response to moisture management conditions. Assessing lines as per the selection indices lead to identification of few lines viz., KDM-361A, CM-129, KDM-372, KDM-331, KDM-1051, KDM-402, KDM-463, KDM-717, KDM-912A, KDM-932A, KDM-343A, KDM-961, KDM-918A, KDM-1156 and KDM-1236 as drought tolerant ones. Highest genetic advance was observed for maturity traits, plant height, leaf relative water content and chlorophyll content before flowering, germination per cent, primary root length and fresh root weight therefore, they should be used for selecting elite lines for drought related traits.
Keywords: Maize, Drought, Selection Index.