GGE BIPLOT ANALYSIS BASED SELECTION OF SUPERIOR CHICKPEA (CICER ARIETINUM L.) INBRED LINES UNDER VARIABLE WATER ENVIRONMENTS

Abstract

Chickpea is an important legume crop and grown mainly on the marginal lands in Pakistan. Insufficient and erratic water availability is severe problem for this crop. Hence, breeding chickpea for low moisture stress tolerance is absolutely important in this era of climate change. Research work was started with evaluation of mini core collection of 450 chickpea lines and 42 lines were retained after three years of selection under different water treatments. These 42 lines were used in current study for evaluation and further selection under three water treatments. Detailed study on these lines was conducted under irrigated, rainfed and tunnel conditions (no rainfall and irrigation) during 2012-13 and 2013-14. Data were collected for yield and yield components which were subjected to analysis of variance and GGE biplot analysis. Analysis showed highly significant differences among lines for all traits under study. Mean comparison showed less differences between irrigated and rainfed conditions than tunnel for all traits. GGE biplot ranked chickpea lines as; above average, below average, stable, unstable and ideally performing. Lines present closer to ideal genotype on GGE biplot were worthy for selection because these had higher mean values with stable performances across different water treatments. The ideal lines in these experiments; K008-11, CM1592/08, CM526/05, D089-11, TGDX201, D094-11 and K051-11 were selected with higher yield potential.