Assessment of Extra Early Field Pea (Pisum sativum L.) Genotypes Performance using GGE Biplot

Abstract

Extra earliness in terms of flowering and maturity coupled with higher grain yield is an ultimate strategy for field pea promotion in short-season environments and to escape prevailing terminal stresses. Therefore, the development of stable, extra early and high-yielding genotypes has been the focus of the field pea breeding program. The study aimed to understand the role of genotype, environment, and their interaction in the performance of extra-early genotypes. The integration of GGE biplot analysis and multiple comparison tests detected that a higher proportion of variation in studied traits was due to genotypes as an interactive factor followed by genotype x environment interaction, justifying the requisite of multi-environment testing. The present study effectively recognized “Mega environment” for environment-specific breeding. The GGE biplot identified genotypes namely IPFD 18-14 and IPFD 18-20 as ‘ideal’ genotypes for earliness and grain yield, respectively, and these genotypes could be exploited in the future breeding programme for developing extra early and high-yielding field pea varieties.