Stability assessment for selection of elite chickpea genotypes across multi-environment based on AMMI and GGE biplots

Abstract

Chickpea (Cicer arietinum L.) is an important cool season food legume but an array of environmental conditions limits its production; therefore, introducing compatible cultivars to a range of environments is an important goal in breeding programs. The present research focused on investigating the impact of genotype-environment interaction on the yield stability and performance of chickpea genotypes across four different locations by deploying the AMMI and GGE biplot method. Over multiple harvests, yield component parameters such as the total number of pods per plant (PP) and Seed index (SI) were assessed as these factors directly contribute to yield enhancement. The AMMI analysis of variance for grain yield revealed significant genotype, environment and G × E interaction indicating the presence of variability among the genotypes and environments. AMMI model exposed the genotypes G5 and G6, as best performer and environment E1 and E2 as most favourable ones for seed yield. GGE biplots revealed that the most desirable genotypes exhibiting high levels of stability along with high yield potential were G6 and G4, both of which are adaptable to a variety of environments. This study also identified the genotypes that adapted well and uniquely to each environment. With its high representativeness and discriminative capacity, environment E1 (Sardarkrushinagar) was determined to be the optimum test environment for choosing genotypes that are typically acclimated. According to our findings, genotypes that are stable and high performing across conditions may be advocated for commercial cultivation or use in crop breeding programmes for enhanced performance.