Stability of maize hybrids under drought, rainfed and optimum field conditions revealed through GGE analysis

Identification of high-yielding and stable cultivars across different environments through multi-location trials are very important in maize breeding. A study was conducted to evaluate 30 maize hybrids in three diverse environments, viz., drought, rainfed and optimal conditions during the years, 2016 and 2017. Environments, genotypes and Genotype x Environment interactions (G x E) were found to be highly significant in both the years. The biplot explained 69.49% of total variation which was partitioned into 53.61 and 15.88% relative to genotype and genotype by environment interaction. Genotype, ZH15449 performed considerably well in 2016 under optimum (113.41 q/ha) and drought (54.19 q/ha) while in 2017, under optimum (82.28 q/ha) and rainfed (65.37 q/ha) conditions. ZH 161285 gave considerable grain yield at all three ecologies (108.70, 74.29, 60.60 q/ha) in year 2016, whereas genotype, ZH 161330 performed well under rainfed (67.76 q/ha) and drought (52.87q/ha) conditions in year 2017.