Journal of Crop Breeding

In order to study the yield stability, 10 open pollinating (OP) sunflower cultivars were evaluated in 6 locations, including Qom, Gonbad, Esfahan, Eslam abad, Karaj and Shahrood in 2012. At each location, experimental design was a randomized complete block with four replications. The homogeneity of error variances was tested using Bartlett test and the results showed that the variances were homogeneous and can be combined for the analysis of data. Analysis of variance showed significant differences among genotypes, there is a one percent probability level. Analysis of variance showed that genotype × environment interaction was significant at the one percent level. This indicates that different genotypes have different performance. Environment effect was a significant at the one percent level and accounted the highest level of the total sum of squares. Based on the coefficient of variance and environmental variance methods, R453, Berezance, Favorit and Zaria cultivars were considered sustainable while also showed good performances. Shukla’s variance analysis showed that, cultivars Favorit, R453 and Zaria had above average performance and were the most stable genotypes. On the other hand, Bulg3, Bulg5 and Sor cultivars were low stabilities through this method. According to Wricke’s echovalance, R453, Record, Favorit and Zaria had lowest ranks respectively all high performing genotypes except Record showed good stability the results of Tai analysis; Zaria and Record had moderate stability.