Study of yield stability of foxtail millet (Setaria italica L.) promising lines

In order to stablity analysis of foxtail millet, six foxtail millet genotypes (five new genotyps and Bastan as control) were cultivated in six locations (Karaj, Gonbad, Varamin, Yazd, Sari and Birjand) across two years in a randomized complete block design with four replications. the results of combined analysis for studied traits (number of tillers, number of leaves, days to flowering, height, fresh forage yield, dry forage yield and seed yield) showed that the cultivars and environments main effects and intraction between cultivars and environments were statistically significant. all of the studied genotypes except G4 had forage yield higher than Bastan (control). the total mean (fresh forage yield) was 24.76 t/ha and the average of all cultivars except G3 and G5 was lower than total mean. the results of the stability analysis by differnrt methods showed that G5 was high yield and stable genotype in the studied environments. spearman's rank correlation between forage yield and stabilty parameters showed strong negative correlation between forage yield and superiority index (Pi) and ranking (Si). these results indicated thet use of Pi and S1 for simultanious selection of stable and high yielding foxtail millet genotypes would be efficent. reggersion deviation, Wricke oekovalenz and Shukla stability variance are equivalent in ranking genotypes for stability and could be substituted with each other in breeding programs. in conclusion, the results showed that G5 had high yield and good stability to all environments and could be introduced as a new cultivar.