Stability analysis in wheat for grain protein

Abstract

Wheat is the second most important crop after rice both in terms of area and production in India. India produced a record 75.57 million tonnes of wheat from 28 million hectares with a productivity of 26.98 q/ha in the year 2000 [4]. There is growing concern to export wheat to have remunerative prices. This situation now calls for diversifying wheat breeding towards quality particularly bread and biscuit making. In this context grain protein content assumes significance as high protein is suitable for bread making and low protein content for biscuit-making [3]. Further, wheat is grown over a wide range of sowing time in India. Therefore, it was considered worthwhile to do stability analysis of grain protein content among 30 relatively new wheat lines by evaluating them over four dates of sowing.