Evaluation and identification of wheat hybrids for wider adaptability

The experimental material comprising F1, F2, BC1 and BC2 generations derived from crosses involving five parents were evaluated to find out stability in bread wheat under four environments. The differences among the crosses were significant for most of the characters studied except ear length, number of spikelets per spike, spike weight per plant, biological yield, harvest index and grain yield per plant. Among environment + varieties x environment interaction significant differences were found for characters such as days to 50% flowering, plant height, number of tillers per plant, number of spikelets per spike and harvest index. The differences for environments were significant for most of the characters except number of tillers per plant, number of grains per spike, spike weight per plant, biological yield, harvest index and grain yield per plant. Further stability analysis revealed that most of the genotypes showed varying stability for different crosses, generations and characters. Cross HI 1500 x HD 2868 was found stable over environments for yield per plant while cross M3020 x NI 5439 and HD 2868x HI 1500 was found stable for harvest index.