Stability analysis of high yielding wheats at varying fertility levels

It is being increasingly realised that for sustainable crop production a new set of high yielding varieties are required which exploit favourable weather and other input conditions but suffer minimum losses when encountered with sub-optimum input conditions. The experiments described in this communication comprised six promising wheats grown in randomized block design with three replications over a range of artificially created fertility gradient for two years. The stability analysis of the genotypes following the Eberhart and Russels model was performed. On the basis of mean performance over all fertility levels, HD2329, Kundan and DL803-3 were the highest yielding wheats. Two genotypes viz., HD2329 and Kundan have the inherent attributes of responsiveness to high yielding environments as evidenced by unit linear regression coefficient (b = 1) of the stability analysis. The distinctive behaviour between the two genotypes was revealed by another stability parameter (ω² δ_i) wherein the deviations from regression were the highest for HD2329, showing that the variety is suited specifically to high yielding environments. Kundan showed the minimal (ω²_δ), indicating that the varietal performance was stable even at the lower fertility levels.