Stability of four Croatian bread winter wheat (Triticum aestivum L.) cultivars for quality traits

Stability of breadmaking quality of four Croatian bread winter wheat cultivars was investigated using rheological traits from the farinogram (dough development time, stability, degree of softening, water absorption, Hankoczy quality number) and the extensogram (extensibility, maximum resistance, ratio of resistance to extensibility, energy) and the indirect traits (protein content, wet gluten content, Zeleny sedimentation volume, Hagberg falling number). Stability was evaluated for four cultivars grown in 12 environments in different parts of Croatia. Four stability parameters, covering a wide range of statistical approaches, were used to estimate cultivar stability. Variability for the stability of quality among cultivars was established. The cultivars Kuna and Banica showed high performance for most quality traits and were also identified as stable for the majority of them. The cultivar Zitarka was stable for four farinogram traits showing high level of performance only for dough development time, while Marija showed stability for only three traits but with unfavourable mean values for all of them. The largest contribution of genotype by environment effects in the total sum of variance components was found for the farinogram traits stability and dough development time, while the lowest, but similar to each other for protein content and wet gluten content.