Peer review

BACKGROUND. Stability of yield across environments is a desirable feature of materials that should be taken into account for selection and recommendation purposes. METHODS. A computer programme (STABSAS) was developed that exploits SAS software procedure and language utilities to perform a complete analysis and compute different measures of genotype stability for a set of variety trials laid out as randomized complete block designs. RESULTS. The programme estimates and test the following stability statistics: Finlay and Wilkinson's (b) and Perkins and Jinks' (Beta) regression coefficients, the variance of deviations from regression (Sd2), Wricke's ecovalence (W2) and Shukla's stability variance. The information issued by STABSAS, though not exhaustive, appeared remarkable when compared with that of four other programmes usable for stability analysis, namely the RJOINT procedure of MSTAT, and STABLE. CONCLUSIONS. STABSAS may prove a useful tool for breeders and agronomists. It is available to SAS users upon request.

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