Maize hybrid X90P481

#The goal of hybrid development is to combine, in a single hybrid, various desirable traits. For field crops, these traits may include resistance to diseases and insects, resistance to heat and drought, reducing the time to crop maturity, greater yield, and better agronomic quality. With mechanical harvesting of many crops, uniformity of plant characteristics such as germination, stand establishment, growth rate, maturity, and plant and ear height is important. Traditional plant breeding is an important tool in developing new and improved commercial crops.

#Provided is a novel maize, Zea mays L., variety, seed, plant, cells and its parts designated as X90P481, produced by crossing two maize inbred varieties. The hybrid maize variety X90P481, the seed, the plant and its parts produced from the seed, and variants, mutants and minor modifications of maize X90P481 are provided. Processes are provided for making a maize plant containing in its genetic material one or more traits introgressed into X90P481 through locus conversion, backcrossing and/or transformation, and to the maize seed, plant and plant parts produced thereby. Methods for producing maize varieties derived from hybrid maize variety X90P481 are also provided. Also provided are maize plants having all the physiological and morphological characteristics of the hybrid maize variety X90P481.

#The hybrid maize plant may further comprise a cytoplasmic or nuclear factor capable of conferring male sterility or otherwise preventing self-pollination, such as by self-incompatibility. Parts of the maize plants disclosed herein are also provided, for example, pollen obtained from a hybrid plant and an ovule of the hybrid plant. Seed of the hybrid maize variety X90P481 is provided and may be provided as a population of maize seed of the variety designated X90P481.

#A new and distinctive maize hybrid variety designated X90P481, which has been the result of years of careful breeding and selection in a comprehensive maize breeding program is provided.

#Maize, Zea mays L., can be referred to as maize or corn. Certain definitions used in the specification are provided below. Also in the examples that follow, a number of terms are used herein. In order to provide a clear and consistent understanding of the specification and claims, including the scope to be given such terms, the following definitions are provided. NOTE: ABS is in absolute terms and % MN is percent of the mean for the experiments in which the inbred or hybrid was grown. PCT designates that the trait is calculated as a percentage. % NOT designates the percentage of plants that did not exhibit a trait. For example, STKLDG % NOT is the percentage of plants in a plot that were not stalk lodged. These designators will follow the descriptors to denote how the values are to be interpreted. Below are the descriptors used in the data tables included herein.

#BRITTLE STALK: A count of the number of “snapped” plants per plot following machine snapping or artificial selection pressure. A snapped plant has its stalk completely snapped at a node between the base of the plant and the node above the ear. Can be expressed as percent of plants that did not snap.