Identification of drought tolerant Chickpea genotypes through multi trait stability index

Drought is a major and constantly increasing abiotic stress factor, thus limiting chickpea production. Like other crops, Kabuli Chickpea genotypes are screened for drought stress through Multi-environment trials (METs). Although, METs analysis is generally executed taking into account only one trait, which provides less significant reliability for the recommendation of genotypes as compared to multi trait-based analysis. Multi trait-based analysis could be used to recommend genotypes across diverse environments. Hence, current research was conducted for selection of superior genotypes through multi-trait stability index (MTSI) by using mixed and fixed effect models under six diverse environments. The genotypic stability was computed for all traits individually using the weighted average of absolute scores from the singular value decomposition of the matrix of best linear unbiased predictions for the genotype vs environment interaction (GEI) effects produced by a linear mixed-effect model index. A superiority index, WAASBY was measured to reflect the MPS (Mean performance and stability). The selection differential for the WAASBY index was 11.2%, 18.49% and 23.30% for grain yield (GY), primary branches per plant (PBP) and Stomatal Conductance (STOMA) respectively. Positive selection differential (0.80% ≤ selection differential ≤ 13.00%) were examined for traits averaged desired to be increased and negative (-0.57% ≤ selection differential ≤ -0.23%) for those traits desired to be reduced. The MTSI may be valuable to the plant breeders for the selection of genotypes based on many characters as being strong and simple selection process. Analysis of MTSI for multiple environments revealed that, the genotypes G20, G86, G31, G28, G116, G12, G105, G45, G50, G10, G30, G117, G81, G48, G85, G17, G32, G4, and G37 were the most stable and high yielding out of 120 chickpea genotypes, probably due to high MPS of selected traits under various environments. It is concluded that identified traits can be utilized as genitors in hybridization programs for the development of drought tolerant Kabuli Chickpea breeding material.