STABILITY ANALYSIS OF BREAD VOLUME FROM RAINFED MEXICAN BREAD WHEAT (Triticum aestivum L.)

Bread volume is the most important characteristic in bread quality of bread wheat (Triticum aestivum L.) and should be maintained in diverse environmental conditions, which should be taken into account in genetic breeding. The evaluation of quality in different environments is complicated, thus the objective of the present study was to determine the stability of bread volume of wheat varieties for drought conditions from a set of unbalanced data, and to determine if the MIXED procedure of SAS can be used as a tool in the selection of stable genotypes. With field experiments, under rainfall conditions and the handling of samples in the laboratory, a set of unbalanced data was obtained that was analyzed with statistical models in MIXED. In the goodness of fit tests the highest value of the information criterion of Akaike corresponded to the reduced model of the variance of stability, thus the stability of the varieties was estimated with this model. The varieties Juchi F200, Romoga F96, Nahuatl F2000 and Tlaxcala F2000 were the most stable. Furthermore, by combining the stability with the bread volume it was determined that the varieties Nahuatl F2000 and Juchi F2000 were the most desirable, given that in addition to their stability, they produced bread with volumes of 867.8 and 864.1 cm(3). The estimation of the stability of genotypes using MIXED was useful when diverse environments were incorporated, as it was easy and fast. Another advantage was that when a numerical value of stability was assigned to each genotype, it was possible to categorize, compare and select.