Department of Genetics and Plant Breeding, Banaras Hindu University, Varanasi-221 005, India
Twenty two diverse cultivars of wheat were studied under seven environments to characterise the stability of yield and its components. The cultivar ‘HD 2009’ (double-dwarf) was average in linear response and most stable with high yield per plant. High stability of tiller number per plant and plasticity for grain number per spike conferred highest stability for yield on ‘HD 2009’. Tiller number, test weight and number of grains per spike, the major components of yield, varied in compensatory fashion to impart homeostasis to the final and complex characters, yield.
The relationship among predictable behaviour of G × E interaction of the component traits and yield per se revealed that linear response of yield was significantly positively associated only with the linear response of tiller per plant, whereas that of yield per spike was positively associated with that of number of grains per spike and test weight.
