A winter wheat breeding program for good and stable yielding in various environments

Abstract

The present paper describes the specific scheme of wheat breeding adopted in our laboratory, which try to be a solution to climatical changes. To do this, the best method is to induce yield stability by evaluating the new genotypes in different, contrasting environments (climatical and soil conditions). A substantial number of varieties (cultivars and breeding lines) are verified even in the first stage of research, in two contrasting locations, followed next years in more environments. The best breeding line, Lovrin 9 Z, was evaluated in the network of NARDS (National Agricultural Research and Development Stations), in 14 locations, distribute in two large zone: first, south and west and second, north and east Romania. The descendent slope of linear trend suggest that the general tendency is that the better yielding varieties are more stable, an important objective of wheat breeding in our activity. The breeding line Lovrin 9 Z are enclouded in this category, having a subunit coefficient of regression. That means that it performs well, even in suboptimal conditions (drought, unfertile soils, etc.). Before to extend the promising variety in production, it is useful to compare it with the best cultivars from the future areas of cultivation. Thus, the promising line Lovrin 9 Z was competitive to some very performant cultivars: Propulso, Avenue, Pibrac, Arcachon, its grains yield exceeding 9000 kg/ha.