Finger millet (Eleusine coracana (L.) Gaertn.) varietal adaptability in North-Western Himalayan region of India using AMMI and GGE biplot techniques

Abstract

Finger millet (Eleusine coracana (L.) Gaertn. subsp. coracana ) production has become stagnant over the years and one of the possible ways to increase the production can be spread of widely adaptable high yielding cultivars. Five national finger millet cultivars were grown in randomized complete block design at ICAR-Vivekananda Institute of Hill Agriculture for six consecutive years to evaluate the grain yield stability. The grain yield data were subjected to AMMI and GGE biplot techniques for assessing the stability and patterns of GE interaction in finger millet National cultivars. The combined ANOVA showed that finger millet grain yield was significantly affected by environment, which explained 54.67% of the total treatment (G+E+GE) variation, whereas the G and GEI accounted for 10.38% and 34.96%, respectively. The partitioning of GEI sum of squares using AMMI analysis indicated that the first two PCAs were highly significant. The first IPCA axis (IPCA1) accounted for 50.3% of the G×E interaction sum of squares. The second IPCA axis accounted for 38.2% of the interaction sum of squares. Both represented a total of 88.5% variation. AMMI 1 biplot indicated the general adaptation of genotype HR 374 across the environments, whereas the other genotypes showed specific adaptation to one or other environments. GGE-biplot graphical analysis further confirmed the results and revealed that HR 374 as an ideal genotype in terms of high yield and stability followed by RAU 8 as desirable genotype. In our research, both of AMMI and biplot models were successful in assessing the performance of genotypes and the selection of best genotype was identical in both of them.