Background: Ensuring the stability of wheat cultivars under diverse environmental stresses is a critical aspect of sustainable agriculture. Given the importance of wheat in ensuring food security and its sensitivity to climate change, the study of cultivar stability from physiological, genetic, and agronomic perspectives has become a priority for researchers. Yield stability under variable environmental conditions is a key objective in plant breeding. Climate change has increased the importance of achieving high-yielding and widely adapted cultivars. Yield stability evaluation helps researchers to identify cultivars with stable performance under different environmental conditions, and the evaluation of yield stability in plant breeding programs is of great importance in identifying genotypes that have acceptable performance under different environmental conditions.
Objective: To evaluate multiple methods of grain yield stability analysis for the purpose of selecting high-yielding and stable lines.
Methodology: The stability of 16 wheat genotypes, comprising one cultivar and 15 promising lines, was assessed in this study. The study was carried out in a randomized complete block design across six environments, encompassing two regions: Gachsaran and Gonbad-e Kavus, over three growing seasons. Grain yield was the primary trait of interest.
Findings: Results indicated that lines 13, 11, and 15 demonstrated superior stability across various environments, as evidenced by their minimal environmental variance. Further statistical analyses, employing Shukla's stability index, genotypic coefficient of variation, Eberhart and Russell regression, and non-parametric stability parameters (Tanazaro), corroborated the findings that lines 3 and 15 exhibited superior stability. The non-parametric index revealed that lines 3 and 15 demonstrated superior stability, attributed to their consistent high performance across diverse environments. The results underscored the significance of a
