Assessment of grain yield stability of barley (Hordeum vulgare L.) promising lines under salinity stress using non-parametric and AMMI analysis methods

Salinity stress is one of the important abiotic stresses affects crop production worldwide. To identify barley lines with stable and acceptable grain yield under salinity stress, field experiments were conducted in Isfahan, Birjand and Yazd, Iran, at salt affected Agricultural Research stations (totaly at six environments) using 18 barley promising lines along with two checks (Khatam cultivar and MBSYT91-8 line) in 2014-2016 cropping seasons. Results of combined analysis variance for grain yield showed that the effect of genotype and year×location, genotype×year and genotype×year×location were highly significant. Results of non-parametric and AMMI analysis showed that the lines; 1, 6 and 8 were superior lines according to yield mean, yield standard deviation, rank mean, rank standard deviation and yield index ratio. According to the results of AMMI analysis, using IPCAs score, AMMI stability value and proposed genotypes for each environment the lines; 6 and 8 were identified as stable lines with acceptable grain yield. In AMMI analysis two first IPCAs were significant and explained 46.2% and 22.1% of the total grain yield variation, respectively. According to the results of the two methods, line 8, showed general compatibility for studied sites and similar regions and line 6 showed specific compatibility for Birjand and Isfahan and line 19 for Yazd.