Yield Stability in Chickpea (Cicer arietinum L.) and Study Relationship among the univariate and multivariate stability Parameters

Abstract

Chickpea (Cicer arietinum L.) is traditionally grown as a rain fed crop globally,specifically in Middle East. Its seed is a rich source of protein for human consumption indeveloping countries such as Iran. The development of genotypes, which can be adaptedto a wide range of diversified environment, is the ultimate goal of plant breeders in a cropimprovement program. In this study, several univariate and multivariate stabilitymethods were used to evaluate the genotype × environment (GE) interaction in 17chickpea genotypes. Field experiments were carried out in 16 environments of Iran’schickpea producing areas to characterize GE interaction on grain yield of 17 chickpeagenotypes. Combined analysis of variance across environments indicated that bothenvironments and GE interactions influenced significantly the genotypes performancefor yield. Twenty univariate and multivariate stability methods and techniques were usedto describe the GE interaction and to define stable genotypes in relation to the yieldconsidered in this study. The different stability statistics which measured the differentaspects of stability was substantiated by Spearman’s rank correlation coefficient.According to Spearman’s rank correlation coefficient three groups of stability parameterscan be defined that the results of these different stability methods were variable. We usedgroup 1, include Lin and Binns superiority measure ( i P ), Hernandez et al (1993) parameter( i D ), GGE Biplot method and Principal coordinate method for introduction somegenotypes to farmers. The identified superior genotypes significantly differ from thelocal check cultivars and therefore farmers in semi arid areas of Iran can use thesegenotypes.