Drought and water shortage are the biggest limiting factors of dry farming, and variety plays an important role in an increase in the yield of dryland maize. Screening high-yield maize varieties is helpful to the continuous increase and stable yield of dryland grain. In this experiment, the growth period, characters and yield of 12 maize varieties were analyzed. The results show that the yield of Ganyu series was low, while the yield of Lianda 169 was the highest (8 080.93 kg/ha), which was 31.40% higher than Jinsui 4. The yield of Dunyu 16 was 6 621.06 kg/ha, 7.64% higher than Jinsui 4. The two varieties had good comprehensive characters, so they could be popularized and planted in dry farming areas of Lanzhou City.