Kemelew Muhe, Alemayehu Assefa
Multi-environment bread wheat yield trial comprised of 18 cultivars along with the standard check HAR1899 was conducted at three locations, Inewary, Molale and Mehalmeda during main seasons, July to December in 2001-2004. The objective of the experiment was to identify stable and high yielding bread wheat cultivar suitable for the rainfall wheat production system in Ethiopia. Analysis of variance using grain yield data from twelve environments made of three locations and four years revealed that both the main and interaction components were significant at (P < 0. 01%),suggesting that no matterN how productive cultivars may be, selection of cultivars based on grain yield is not reliable if the cultivar x environment interaction is statistically significant. Additive main effect and multiplicative interaction analysis of grain yield combined over ten environments showed that some of the tested bread wheat cultivars were most stable and high yielding, some were less stable and high yielding and one cultivars was stable and low yielding cultivars. The result demonstrated that application of Additive main effect and multiplicative interaction analysis is important in handling the cultivar x environment interaction component and developing specific and widely adapted wheat varieties.
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