| Summary: | Sweet corn has dominated the urban market due to its sweetness, tenderness, and ease of digestibility. It's import and export values have dramatically increased during the past 10 years as a fresh, processed, and preserved commodity. However, the commercially available sweet corns are deficient in β-carotene. In our study, we introgressed the favorable allele of crtRB1 (responsible for high β-carotene) into the recurrent sweet corn inbred SC11-2 from maize donor parent UMI1230β1+ to develop the β-carotene-rich sweet corn genotype by marker aided breeding. The crtRB1 3′TE InDel marker was utilized for foreground selection of favorable genotype. A total of 103 polymorphic SSR markers were employed for background selection, resulting in a 96% recovery of recurrent parent genome (RPG). We recorded high β-carotene content (9.878–10.645 μg/g) in the introgressed lines compared to the recurrent parent, SC11-2 (0.989 μg/g). The sugar content ranged from 18 to 19.10% and was on par with the recurrent parent (20.40%). These biofortified inbreds can be used as a donor in maize breeding programs to develop sweet corn genotypes with high β-carotene content.
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