Interaction studies of field pea (Pisum sativum L.) genotypes in temperate conditions of Kashmir valley

Field pea is a rabi crop and has huge potential in national and international market. Being legume crop, it improves soil fertility due to fixation of nitrogen. The present research was conducted at three random locations across the variable environmental conditions of Kashmir valley for analysing the stability performance of field pea. Eleven field pea genotypes containing two check varieties viz., Shalimar Pea-1 and Rachna were evaluated for different agro-morphological and quality traits. Significant difference among all the genotypes for different traits was observed by analysis of variance. For stability analysis Eberhart and Russell's model was followed, which revealed that mean squares due to genotype × environment interaction has been significant for all the characters. The mean square due to the environments showed significant difference for all the traits revealing the influence of environments on these traits. Mean squares of linear and non-linear components showed that environments were significant for all the characters indicating that differences occurred between the selected environments and thus have considerable influence on all the traits. Based on stability analysis, the mean square deviation from regression (S²d_i) was non-significant for most of genotypes included in the study across all three locations indicating prediction of stability for these genotypes was accurate and reliable. The linear regression (b_i) was non-significant for SP-34 and SP-36 implying that these cultivars showed average stability behaviour. In accordance with the mean, it was observed that the genotypes viz., SP-34 and SP-36 were fit to the three different environments indulged in the current study. Further these two selected genotypes need to be tested across large locations and over different years across the valley to further analyse their stability before releasing them for commercial cultivation.