Genotype × environment interaction patterns for grain yield of spring barley in different regions of Kazakhstan

Barley plays an important role in agricultural sector of Kazakhstan and it is grown in many different climate zones over 1.5 mln hectares annually. Therefore development of optimal cultivars for specific environments is a major challenge for barley breeding community in Kazakhstan. One of the approaches to address this question is to test large collection of commercial cultivars and advanced lines over a number of environmental sites that reflect major spatial and temporal climate variations in the country. In this work 103 cultivars and advanced lines of spring barley bred in six different breeding stations of Kazakhstan were grown in different testing sites in seven regions over 2009–2011 years. The major tasks of this research were to evaluate genotype × environment interactions and assess grain yield in associations with developmental stages of barley, such as heading date and seed maturation date. The results suggest that (i) heading and seed maturation dates are significantly correlated with grain yield in specific regions and may have opposite correlation indexes in response to environmental conditions; (ii) accessions of different bred origin vary in their ability to exhibit environmentally-dependent plastic responses; (iii) spatial variation was more important than temporal variation in GxE interactions; (iv) biplot analysis is effective approach in identification of best suitable and stable accessions for both broad and narrow environments. The obtained results are further contribution to understanding of complex mechanisms of genotype x environment interactions.