Assessment of parametric stability statistics for selecting stablechickpeagenotypes

ABSTRACT: Grain yield and yield stability of genotypes are of great importance in chickpea genetics and breeding programs. Yield stability can be applied to selectpromising and stable chickpea genotypes across environments. It can also represents good adaptation ability of high-yielding genotypes overenvironments.Thisexperiment was conducted in 8 environments at the experimental farm of Campus of Agriculture and Natural Resources, Razi University, Kermanshah, Iranduring 2009-2013 cropping seasons. The experiment was laid out with 20 chickpeagenotypes in arandomized complete block design with three replications. Combined analysis of variance showed highly significant differences for the GE (genotype-environment) interaction indicating the possibility of selection for stable entries. Most of the stability statistics indicated that genotype 20 was the most phenotypically stable with high grain yield. Principal component analysis (PCA), based on the rank correlation matrix and biplot exhibited that coefficient of variation (CVi), regression coefficient(bi) and environmental variance(Si2) were similar in classifying the genotypes according to their stability under different environmental conditions.