Phenotypic stability analysis of barley promising lines in the cold regions of Iran

Development of high-yielding new barley promising lines with wide adaptation across a wide range of diverse environments is a key goal of barley breeding program in the cold regions of Iran. The main objective of the current study was to use different stability analysis approaches to analyze phenotypic stability for selecting high-yielding with yield stability barley promising lines adapted to the cold regions of Iran as well as to investigate the relationships among different stability parameters and grain yield. Eighteen barley promising lines and two check cultivars; Bahman and Jolgeh were evaluated using randomized complete block design with three replications at six research stations during 2015–2017 cropping seasons. The AMMI analysis of variance indicated that the environment, genotypes and their interaction accounted for 53.60, 5.77 and 24.59% of the total variations, respectively. The first six interaction principal components (IPCA1 to IPCA6) were highly significant, revealing differential responses of the tested lines to different environments and the necessity of stability analysis. In total, 18 parametric and non-parametric statistics were used to analyze the data. According to PCAbased biplot and correlation heat-map, the stability statistics were classified into two main groups (CI and CII): CI comprised mean grain yield, θi, TOP and bi, which are referred to the dynamic concept of stability, and CII included S1, S2, S3, S6, NP1, NP2, NP3, NP4, CV, ASV, Wi 2, σ2, θ(i), Sdi 2 and KR, which are referred to static concept of stability. In general, the parametric and non-parametric stability statistics indicated similar results, identifying the promising line G8 (Makouee/Jolge) as high-yielding with yield stability. Therefore, this promising line can be recommended for being grown and commercialized in the cold regions of Iran.