Multivariate analyses of Ethiopian durum wheat revealed stable and high yielding genotypes

Abstract

Improving crop adaptation and stability across diverse and changing environmental conditions is essential to increasing grain yield per unit area. In turn, this contributes to meeting the increasing global food demand. Nevertheless, a number of factors challenge the efficiency of crop improvement programs, of which genotype-by-environment interaction (GEI) is one of the major factors. This study aimed to evaluate the performance and phenotypic stability of 385 Ethiopian durum wheat landraces and 35 cultivars; assess the pattern of genotype by environment interaction (GEI) effect, and identify stable and high-yielding landraces or cultivars using the additive main effect and multiplicative interaction (AMMI) and genotype main effect plus genotype by environment interaction biplot (GGE-biplot). The experiment was laid out in an alpha lattice design with two replications at five test sites (Akaki, Chefe Donsa, Holeta, Kulumsa, and Sinana). The combined analysis of variance revealed highly significant effects (P ≤ 0.01) of environments (E), genotype (G), and GEI on a phenotypic variation of traits evaluated, including grain yield. For all traits, the amount of phenotypic variance and GEI explained by the GGE biplot was higher than in AMMI2, but both exhibited significant effects of E and GEI on the genotypes. The AMMI model identified G169, G420, G413, G139, G415, G416, G417, and G418 as stable genotypes across testing sites. Whereas, the GGE biplot identified G169, G420, G415, G139, G106, G412, G413, and G417 as both high-yielding and stable across test sites. Hence, genotypes identified as stable and high yielding in the present study could be used in a durum wheat breeding program aimed at identifying genes and molecular markers associated with the crop’s productivity traits as well as developing stable and high-yielding cultivars for use in East Africa and beyond.

Dissecting Genotype by Environment Interactions in Moroccan Wheat: An Advanced Biplot and Heatmap Analysis Unveiling Agronomic, Quality Traits, and Genotypic Stability for Tailored Breeding Strategies

“…This comprehensive study, spanning five wheat-growing seasons across distinct agro-climatic zones in Morocco, has uncovered significant insights into genotype by environment (G × E) interactions, foundational to crop breeding programs [ 17 , 18 , 19 ]. This study’s meticulous design and robust statistical analysis have emphasized the differential performance of wheat genotypes across variable environmental conditions, echoing earlier findings [ 20 , 21 , 22 , 23 ]. The marked impact of environmental conditions on vital agronomic traits, such as yield, thousand kernel weight (TKW), and spikes per square meter (Spk/m 2 ), highlights the profound influence of climatic variables on wheat performance, supporting previous findings [ 24 , 25 , 26 ].…”

Wheat quality under a climate spell : a focus on protein, physico-chemical and growth characteristics evaluated by innovatively combined approaches

“…GGE (genotype-by-environment interaction) biplot analysis is a widely used method to study the stability of yield and quality of wheat grown in multiple locations and years (Bishwas et al, 2021;Bosi et al, 2022;Mulugeta et al, 2022). This analysis is based on a PCA where the effects of the genotype (G) and environmental interaction (GXE) are taken into account (Gupta et al, 2022).…”

Unlocking the genetic potential of Ethiopian durum wheat landraces with high protein quality: Sources to be used in future breeding for pasta production

“…Additive main effect and multiplicative interaction (AMMI) stability value (ASV) and AMMI rank stability value (rASV) were computed as described in Mulugeta et al. (2022) to evaluate the stability of the genotypes across the test sites in terms of their protein content and composition.…”

“…However, one of the genotypes was excluded from the analyses due to its poor agronomic performance at the three sites. The landrace genotypes were selected from the durum wheat accessions conserved at the EBI gene bank and are a subset of accessions described in Mulugeta et al (2022). These landrace genotypes were grouped into ten populations (Table 1) based on their geographical regions of origin (collection sites) and genetic background.…”

“…2.2 | Field phenotyping 2.2.1 | Phenotypic traits Eight phenotypic traits described previously (Mulugeta et al, 2022) for the genotypes were used in this study to evaluate their relationship with the protein composition parameters evaluated here. The phenotypic traits included were morphophenological traits (days to heading and maturity), plant architecture traits (plant height (cm), spike length (cm), and number of tillers per plant), grain yield (t ha −1 ), and yield components (numbers of spikelets per spike and thousand kernel weight (gm)), all of which as described in the wheat descriptors (IBPGR, 1985).…”