Assessing the Stability of Herbicide-Tolerant Lentil Accessions (Lens culinaris Medik.) under Diverse Environments

Abstract

Assessing the adaptability and stability of herbicide-tolerant lentil accessions to two broad-spectrum post-emergence herbicides in multi-environment trials has become a must in a breeding program to improve its selection. The adaptability and stability of 42 herbicide-tolerant lentil accessions were investigated using five stability parameters under eight different environments. Significant Genotype–Environment (GE) interaction was found for days to flowering (DFLR), days to maturity (DMAT), and seed yield per plant (SY). The analyzed stability parameters such as Cultivar superiority, Finlay–Wilkinson, Shukla, Static Stability, and Wricke’s Ecovalence ranked the tested accessions differently, confirming the importance of using a combination of stability parameters when evaluating the performance of a group of accessions. GGE biplot of the SY trait accounted for 60.79% of sums of squares of the GE interaction and showed that cool and high rainfall environments are ideal for testing the agronomic performance of tolerant accessions. The GGE biplot of SY showed that IG4605(19), IG195(6), and IG156635(12) were specifically adapted to one mega environment, whereas IG70056(38) was identified as a superior line having a high and stable yield. These lines should be included in lentil crossing programs to develop herbicide-tolerant cultivars adapted to diverse environments.