Abstract: Farm-saved seed accounts for the greatest proportion of seeds used by farmers worldwide especially
in low-income countries. One way through which farmers have been able to improve quality of the farm-saved
seed is seed selection. In maize, grains can be selected in terms of, in addition to health, kennel size. One way
of easing selection based on kernel size may be selection of ears and discriminative threshing of the ears. A
study was conducted at Sokoine University of Agriculture in Tanzania to determine effects of selecting different
sizes of ears and threshing discriminatively grains positioned in basal, distal and middle areas of the ears. Grains
so selected were tested for germination capacity and vigour. Results showed that as expected larger ears and
basal position of grains were accompanied with larger size of kernels. Size of ears did not influence grain
germination capacity but it had significant effects on grain and seedling vigour. Grains from very small ears
were earliest to germinate (lower mean germination time, MGT), which is an expression of high grain vigour.
However, grains from larger ears and basal positions in ears (consequently larger kernel size) led to significantly
(P 0.05) more vigorous seedlings (larger seedling dry weight). Basal position of kernels resulted in
significantly higher germination capacity and larger seedling dry weight than distal position. It can be
concluded that selection of ears and selective threshing of the ears with avoiding distal position kernels can
also be important criteria in quality improvement of maize grains.