Multi-year studies are crucial for the evaluation of sunflower hybrids and
quantifying the environmental effect in the expression of genetic potential.
In order to assess the adaptation of eight hybrids and test the impact of
water availability on plant height (PH), head diameter (HD), 1000-grain
weight (TWG), hectolitre mass (HM), seed yield (SY), oil content (OC) and
oil yield (OY), a two-year study was conducted with irrigation as treatment.
Analysis of variance (ANOVA) and principal component analysis (PCA)
confirmed the year influence on all tested agronomic traits. According to
the three-way ANOVA, irrigation significantly affected all tested traits
except HD, OC and OY. All agronomic traits had lower values in both rainfed
and irrigated treatment in 2014, confirming the influence of the
environment. The hybrid was a significant source of variation for all
traits. ANOVA and PCA grouped hybrids 1, 7, and 8 in one group and 2, 3, 4,
5, and 6 in another. The first group had lower PH, HD, TGW and SY values and
higher HM, OC and OY values, and the second group had reversed traits
values. Furthermore, the PCA biplot indicates SY was positively correlated
with PH, HD, TGW and OY and HM was positively correlated with OC. This
facilitates the breeding process because it enables indirect breeding for
economically important traits such as seed yield, oil content and oil yield.
As treatments were significant sources of variation for PH, HM, TWG and SY,
sunflower irrigating is considered justified and can be used as an
additional agrotechnical measure to target the agronomic traits.
Understanding the expression of traits under rainfed and irrigation
conditions will greatly help design effective breeding programs by creating
hybrids suitable for cultivation in semi-arid environments.