Author(s)

José Elzevir Cavassim, João Carlos Bespalhok Filho, Luis Fernando Alliprandini, Ricardo Augusto de Oliveira, Edelclaiton Daros, Edson Perez Guerra

Department of Plant Science and Crop Protection, Federal University of Parana, Curitiba, Brazil.
State University of Center-West (Unicentro), Guarapuava, Brazil.

The stability of soybean genotypes is very important in breeding programs for not only the evaluation, selection, and production of cultivars but also the establishment of parameters required for the classification of genotypes into relative maturity groups (RMG). The aim of this study was to define stable genotypes for traits, such as days to flowering, days to maturity, and length of the reproductive period, and to classify them into RMG. For this purpose, 20 commercial soybean cultivars were evaluated in 12 environments distributed in the major producing regions of Brazil. Assessments according to the Eberhart and Russell method and the additive main effects and multiplicative interaction (AMMI) method were effective in the identification of stable genotypes and their classification into RMG. These methods can also be used collectively for this purpose. Our results showed that the AMMI method led to a better interpretation of genotype-environment interactions. Thus, RMG obtained on the basis of stable genotypes represented a good estimate of the relative maturity of soybean crops throughout Brazil.

 

Glycine max. (L.) Merrill; Genotype-Environment Interaction; Eberhart and Russell Method; AMMI

J. Cavassim, J. Bespalhok Filho, L. Alliprandini, R. de Oliveira, E. Daros and E. Guerra, "Stability of Soybean Genotypes and Their Classification into Relative Maturity Groups in Brazil," American Journal of Plant Sciences, Vol. 4 No. 11, 2013, pp. 2060-2069. doi: 10.4236/ajps.2013.411258.