Author(s)

Kidanemaryam Wagaw^1*, Amare Seyoum¹, Taye Tadesse², Amare Nega³, Adane Gebreyohannes⁴, Tamirat Bejiga¹, Sewmehon Siraw¹, Hailemariam Solomon¹, Daniel Nadew⁵, Meron Bogale¹

¹Melkassa Agricultural Research Center, Ethiopian Institute of Agricultural Research, Adama, Ethiopia.
²Crop Research Directorate, Ethiopian Institute of Agricultural Research, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.
³Department of Cellular, Microbial and Molecular Biology, College of Natural Science, Addis Ababa University, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.
⁴School of Agricultural, Earth and Environmental Sciences, College of Agriculture, Engineering and Science, University of KwaZulu-Natal, Pietermaritzburg, South Africa.
⁵School of Plant Sciences, College of Agriculture and Environmental Sciences, Haramaya University, Dire Dawa, Ethiopia.

Sorghum is a staple food crop in Ethiopia and its production is mainly constrained by drought, other environmental factors, and the use of low-yielding, local sorghum varieties. To improve sorghum productivity, it is crucial to provide farmers with high yielding, stable sorghum cultivars that are tolerant to drought and other constraints. The stable performance of sorghum varieties in a growing region is critical to obtain a high and stable yield. In the 2012-2014 crop year, 24 genotypes, including standard controls, were evaluated at the national variety trial stage over six main dry lowland sorghum growing sites and two years made 7 environments to evaluate their performance, stability and to quantify Genotype by Environment Interaction (GEI) across moisture stress sorghum growing areas of Ethiopia. Spatial modeling has been used to estimate predicted mean (BLUPs) results and Performance and estimation of environmental correlation, heritability, GEI, and other parameters using the ASReml3-R analysis package. The predicted mean yield of the test genotypes across the environment ranged from 3.45 to 1.56 t·ha^-1. Based on the result genotype G13, it could be further promoted because of its yield advantage and other important attributes over the standard checks, but it is the least stable. Based on the analyzed result, two mega environments were formed and Environment 1 (E1) is identified as an ideal environment among the testing environments.

Genetic Correlation, Mega Environment, Stability, Spatial Analysis

Wagaw, K. , Seyoum, A. , Tadesse, T. , Nega, A. , Gebreyohannes, A. , Bejiga, T. , Siraw, S. , Solomon, H. , Nadew, D. and Bogale, M. (2021) Distinguishing of Stable Genotypes and Mega Environment for Grain Yield Performance of Sorghum [Sorghum bicolor (L.) Moench] Genotypes Using Spatial Analysis. American Journal of Plant Sciences, 12, 417-431. doi: 10.4236/ajps.2021.123027.