Stability and G X E interaction on yield and its components of rice

Genotype x environment interaction was studied for grain yield and their component characters in parents (5 females and 8 males) and their 40 hybrids of rice under three environments during Rabi-2012-13 to kharif-2013. In general, stability analysis revealed significant differences among all the characters for genotype and environment except for days to 50% flowering for environment when tested against the pooled error and pooled deviation. The analysis of variance for phenotypic stability indicated significant G x E interaction for productive tillers per plant, plant height (cm), panicle length, grains per panicle, test weight (g), and grain yield per plant(g). The environment exerted significant effect for all the traits when tested against pooled error and deviation. The significance of G x E (linear) and pooled deviation for these traits (except panicle length (cm), grains per panicle and test weight (g)) suggested importance of both linear and non-linear components in building up total G x E interaction. The best three high yielding and stable hybrids for grain yield per plant were GNR-4 x IET-22121, NVSR-303-14 x IET-22121 and GNR-4 x GAR-1. The hybrid, GNR-4 x IET-22121 was found to be stable for productive tillers per plant, grains per panicle, test weight (g) and L: B ratio.