ASSESSMENT OF THE IMPACT OF ECOLOGICAL FACTORS ON YIELD AND QUALITY PARAMETERS IN TRITICALE USING GGE BIPLOT AND AMMI ANALYSIS

We examined the effects of late spring frost on grain yield (GY) and quality of spring triticale ( x Triticosecale) genotypes, based on genotype plus genotype x environment interaction (GGE) biplot analysis. The study included a total of 25 genotypes, including 20 advanced lines, 3 triticale varieties, and 2 candidate lines. The genotypes were evaluated for GY and quality traits during the 2012/2013 (normal season) and 2013/2014 (late spring frost) seasons. We observed significant differences between seasons for GY and quality traits, as affected by changing environmental conditions over the two seasons. Late spring frost caused a statistically significant 50% reduction in GY, 7.1% reduction in test weight (TW), and 26.1% reduction in thousand grain weight (TGW); however, it positively affected protein content (PC), and it increased by 42.6%. We observed that early heading genotypes were differently affected by late spring frost, compared to late maturing genotypes, in terms of GY, TW, and TOW. The GGE biplot analysis highlighted three and four distinct groups of traits in the 2012/2013 and 2013/2014 growing seasons, respectively. Results from the GGE biplot analysis revealed that G12 and G16 were stable and ideal genotypes for all of the traits in the 2012/2013 season, and G 10 and G23 were stable and ideal for the 2013/2014 season. In addition, G10 was the best genotype averaged over the two growing seasons. The genotypes G9, G13, and 017 were more stable and higher yielding, based on Additive Main Effect and Multiplicative Interaction (AMMI) analysis, compared to the remaining genotypes.