Stability Analysis of Bread Wheat Lines using Regression Models

Abstract

Stability of performance is one of the most important characteristics of any variety. To evaluate stability of 40 bread wheat lines (30 introduced lines and 5 check cultivars), a multi-environment experiment was conducted at three locations for two years; The University of Agriculture, Peshawar; Agriculture Research Station, Baffa, Mansehra; Agriculture Research Station, Buner; and at one location for one year; Agriculture Research Station, Kohat, during 2016-17 and 2017-18. Data were recorded on tillers m-2, grains spike-1 and kernel weight. Analysis of variance indicated that the main environmental effects, genotypic effects as well as interaction effects were significant for all the traits studied, indicating that the performance of most of the genotypes was not the same across the environments. Various stability parameters; Eberhart and Russell, Perkin and Jinks and Finlay and Wilkinsons models were used to determine stability. Considering the Eberhart and Russell's approach G.27, G.34, G.11, G.17, Siran and G.35 for tillers m-2 and G.22, G.23, G.31 for kernel weight had the bi (regression coefficient) values near to unity and had higher (coefficient of determination) Ri2. Based on the stability measure of Freeman and Perkin's genotypes G.20, G.6 and G.29 for tillers m-2, G.11, Gi.10, G.34 for grains spike-1 and G.11, G.24, G.29, G.32 and G.21 for kernel weight, were having bi values almost equal to one while the Ri2 value were higher. Based on Finlay and Wilkinson's model for tillers m-2 G.4, G.33 and G.5, for grains spike-i1 G.30, G.24, G.2 and G.15, while for the weight of kernel G.19, G.21, G.28, G.25, G.11, G.29, G.32 and G.10 had bi value close to one. Near to unity bi value and higher Ri2 indicate that most of these genotypes performance is consistent for the mentioned traits under the tested environments.