Abstract            Volume:9  Issue-5  Year-2021         Original Research Articles

Online ISSN : 2347 - 3215 Issues : 12 per year Publisher : Excellent Publishers Email : editorijcret@gmail.com

Tef [Eragrostis tef (Zucc.)Trotter]) is one of the most important cereal crops grown in Ethiopia; the first crop in terms of acreage, however, its production has been partly constrained by low grain yield and less stability of the released tef genotypes under cultivation. This study was conducted to estimate the extent of genotype by environment interactions and stability in tef genotypes in the highlands of Ethiopia. Eighteen promising recombinant inbred lines plus a standard and local check variety were evaluated at six environments under rain-fed conditions using the randomized complete block design with four replications. AMMI analysis showed that tef grain yield was highly significantly (p< 0.001) affected by environments (E), genotypes (G), and genotype × environment interaction (GEI) indicating the presence of genetic variation and possible selection of stable entries. Thus, 50.6% of the total sum of squares was justified by environmental fluctuations showing that the environments were diverse to cause large variation in grain yield across test locations. GEI was further partitioned by principal component analysis and the first two multiplicative axis terms (PCA1, and PCA2) explained 45.5% and20.7% (66.2%) of GEI sum of squares, respectively. The mean grain yield value of tested genotypes averaged over environments indicated that G4 (HO-TF-1486 x DZ-01-2787(RIL No. 173) had the highest grain yield of 2827 kg ha^-1 compared to the standard check variety Negus with 2565 kg ha^-1 grain yield. In addition, this candidate variety proved stable across environments for grain yield during the varietal evaluation experiment. This genotype, therefore, will be verified and evaluated by the national variety release committee in 2021/22 main cropping season for approval and release for high potential tef growing environments to increase tef production and productivity.

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