Abstract only

Present investigations were taken up to understand the impact of G X E interactions on the performance of different agronomic traits, interrelationship between various traits and to identify the adaptation and yield stability of different groups of cultivars for different agro ecosystems. For these investigations 90 genetically divergent genotypes were selected to investigate various aspects. These 90 genotypes belonging to different groups of genotypes viz. Desi bold seeded, desi medium seeded, kabuli bold seeded and kabuli medium seeded group of cultivars. The results showed that the performance of seed yield and other major traits like number of branches, number of pods and biomass production of desi bold seeded group of cultivars was superior under rainfed environments in comparison to other groups of cultivars. This indicated that this group has inbuilt capacity to withstand well under water limiting environment. This may be due to desirable gene pools present in this group. On the other hand kabuli bold seeded group of cultivars showed superior performance over the other groups of cultivars under non stress environments under irrigation plantings. This showed that this group is suitable for irrigated conditions due to presence of specific gene pools suitable for non stress environments. The study of phenotypic correlations between seed yield and other agronomic traits indicated that the stable interrelationship of seed yield was obtained only with number of branches, number of pods and biomass under both the environments. On the other hand, the associations of seed yield with other trials like plant height, days to flowering, days to maturity and seed size was unstable and changing from rainfed to irrigated environments and vice versa. It shows that selection for seed yield, number of branches, number of pods and biomass can be exercised simultaneously during generation advance. It also shows that these traits collectively playing important and crucial role in the management of drought stress. The stability analysis provided very useful information regarding adaptation and stable yield performance of different genotypes. It is interesting to mention that most of the cultivars showed poor adaptation to both the environments, four cultivars showed good adaptation to non stress or rich environments and four cultivars to unfavorable environments. It is also interesting to mention that out of 90 genotypes only 7 genotypes showed stable yield performance over the years and environments. Based on these findings it was suggested that the identification of stable genotypes, correlation pattern and yield contributing traits are important and essential for breeding programme for the development of drought tolerant populations and for input responsive genotypes.

English

0409|AGRIS 0401|AL-Wheat Program

Juan Carlos Mendieta

CIMMYT Publications Collection