AMMI and GGE Stability Analysis of Drought Tolerant Chickpea (Cicer arietinum L) Genotypes for Target Environments

Background: Chickpea is an important nutrient rich food legume cultivated mainly as rainfed crop in arid and semiarid regions of India. Due to changed climatic conditions incidence of frequent drought stress events are causing significant yield losses. Methods: In order to identify superior and locally adaptable genotypes under rainfed conditions multi-environment chickpea evaluation trial was conducted in five environments with 50 genotypes during Rabi, 2021-2022 stability analysis for grain yield was performed by deploying the AMMI (Additive Main Effects and Multiplicative Interaction) model and GGE (Genotype and Genotype by Environment) biplot method with an aim to identify the high yielding stable chickpea genotypes. Result: The AMMI analysis of variance for grain yield (kg ha(-1)) of 50 chickpea genotypes revealed significant genotype, environment and GxE interaction indicating the presence of variability among the genotypes and environments. The mean grain yield of 50 genotypes over environments ranged from 1296 kg/ha (G39) to 2222 kg/ha (G8). The genotype G24 exhibited high grain yield than mean yield with specific adaptability for the environment E2 (Palem). The results indicated that, environment E5 (Warangal) was identified as the best suited for potential expression of grain yield. Results of stability analysis revealed that genotype G17 exhibited high grain yield along with high stability across the locations with desirable mean performance.