Wheat populations: parental performance and stability in organic and non-organic environments

Summary

Twenty winter wheat varieties used as parents in a half diallel crossing programme for the production of wheat populations were grown in field trials at two organic and two non-organic sites over three years in England. Yields of the varieties between the two non-organic sites were highly correlated, but less so between the two organic sites and between the non-organic and organic sites. At the non-organic sites, most of the variation in yield (60%) was due to varietal differences, whereas, at the organic sites, it was due largely to the effects of environment (79%), and genotypic variation only accounted for 9%. More detailed analysis, using AMMI (Additive Main effects and Multiplicative Interaction), allowed stricter comparisons among individual varieties. With the exception of the variety Deben, different varieties performed well in terms of yield and stability in the two systems. In particular, Tanker performed well in the non-organic trials, but was below average under organic conditions, whereas Renan gave the reverse response. The results indicate the importance of specific trials for non-organic and organic variety performance evaluation.