Seed Yield Stability Assessment in Advanced Breeding Lines of Chickpea (Cicer arietinum L.) using AMMI and GGE Biplot Analysis

Climate change has led to temperature variations affecting chickpea crops in dry and semi-arid regions. Late-sown crops are exposed to high temperatures during their reproductive phases, while early-sown crops experience low temperatures during their vegetative stages. A set of fourteen chickpea genotypes were evaluated for seed yield stability under five different sowing dates during 2022-23 to identify lines with heat and moisture stress tolerance. The results aim to determine the best sowing time for optimal growth and yield.

A study was conducted during the Rabi season of 2022-2023 to assess the yield performance of fourteen chickpea genotypes, including Advanced Breeding Lines and released varieties, at ZARS, Kalaburagi. The genotypes were sown on five dates and evaluated using the AMMI model and GGE biplot analysis to examine genotype-environment interactions and yield stability.

Analysis of variance (ANOVA) across five environments (ENV-1 to ENV-5) revealed significant genotypic differences in all environments indicating the presence of substantial amount of variability among the evaluated genotypes. Further, the principal components (PCs) obtained from the genotype ? environment interaction studies were highly significant. The first principal component (PC1) accounts for 51.1% of the interaction variation, while PC2, PC3 and PC4 explain an additional 20.2%, 19.2% and 9.5%, respectively, together accounting for 100% of the interaction variation. Interaction principal component analysis (IPCA) scores from AMMI helped identify genotypes with consistent performance and those with specific adaptive responses. Based on all models, genotypes G1 (KCD-11) and G7 (GBM-2) emerge as the top performers, offering the highest yields and superior stability. Therefore, these genotypes could be recommended to farmers for various sowing dates.