Adaptability and yield stability analysis of food barley (Hordeum vulgare L.) in South Gondar zone, Northwest Ethiopia

In food barley, genotype-environment interaction is a frequent occurrence. By identifying stable genotypes across settings, the impact of G x E can be mitigated. Ten food barley genotypes were investigated for yield stability and adaptation in five different environments. The analyses included stability, genotype, and genotype-environment interaction, as well as additive main effect and multiplicative interaction. However, genotype-environment interaction captured 92.98% of the GGE variance. AMMI analysis only explained 27.87% of G and 20.12% of G x E. Five environments were identified using GGE analysis. Of these, Estie2022 (3591.3 kg ha⁻¹) and Debretabor2022 (3494.47 kg ha⁻¹) had the highest grain yields, indicating that they are suitable for the production of food barley, while Lay-Gaynt2023 (2399.82 kg ha⁻¹) had the lowest grain yields, indicating that they are not a suitable environment. The conditions with the best yields were Estie2022, and the lowest-yielding environments were Lay-Gaynt 2023. The two genotypes with the highest yields were HB-1966 (3592.97 kg ha-1) and HB-1965 (3555.17 kg ha-1). Based on yield stability, the genotypes Biftu, followed by Adoshe and Abdene, were the most stable with the highest mean grain yield performance. The genotypes with the highest-yielding performance but relatively the lowest stability were HB-1966 and HB-1965. The genotype HB-1965 was recommended at the Estie2022 and Debretabor2023 testing environments. The ideal environment was represented by Estie2023, and the winning genotype was HB-1966. This suggests that the two winning genotypes were adapted to the specific environments tested in the current study. In contrast, Guta and Harbu were adapted to a more diverse environment than the test environments of the South Gondar Zone, Northwest Ethiopia.