Genotype × Environment Interaction for Yield and Associated Traits in Rice

This study was conducted to assess genotype by environment interaction (GEI) for yield and yield related traits in rice. The genetic material comprised 87 rice F5:7 recombinant inbred lines (RILs) along with three check cultivars namely Pakhal, Kashmir Basmati and Fakhr-e-Malakand. The genetic material was planted in alpha lattice design using three replications across different locations namely Peshawar, Swat, Manshera and Charsadda of the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province of Pakistan during 2017. Pooled analysis of variance indicated significant (p≤0.01) differences among the environments, genotypes and GEI for spikelets panicle-1, grains panicle^-1, 1000-grain weight and grain yield. Across four locations, AUP-30 showed the highest number of spikelets panicle^-1 (242.5), grains panicle-1 (228.6) and maximum 1000-grain weight (29.0 g). Rice RILs AUP-3, AUP-30 and AUP-29 manifested the higher grain yield of 4.3, 4.2 and 4.1 tonnes ha-1 across locations, respectively. On the basis of individual locations, rice RILs AUP-3, AUP-29, AUP-30 and AUP-40 displayed the highest grain yield of 4.8, 4.6, 5.4 and 3.9 tonnes ha^-1 at Peshawar, Swat, Mansehra and Charsadda, respectively. Grain yield displayed significantly positive correlation with spikelets panicle^-1, grains panicle^-1 and 1000-grain weight. The study indicated differential behavior of the rice RILs for different traits across different environments. Rice RILs AUP-3, AUP-30 and AUP-29 excelled in performance for yield and yield attributes across locations while AUP-3, AUP-29, AUP-30 and AUP-29 displayed adaptation to specific environments of Peshawar, Swat, Mansehra and Charsadda, respectively.