Abstract:

A proper understanding of cultivar adaptation to different environments is of great relevance
in agronomy and plant breeding. As wheat is the most important crop in Poland, with a total of about
22% of the total sown area, the study of its performance in environments with different productivity
levels for consequent cultivar recommendation is of major importance. In this paper, we assess
the relative performance of winter wheat cultivars in environments with different productivity and
propose a method for cultivar recommendation, by considering the information of environmental
conditions and drought stress. This is performed in the following steps: (1) calculation of expected
wheat productivity, depending on environmental factors, (2) calculation of relative productivity of
cultivars in the environments, and (3) recommendation of cultivars of a specific type and range of
adaptation. Soil and weather conditions were confirmed as the most important factors affecting winter
wheat yield. The weather factors should be considered rather in shorter (e.g., 10 day) than longer
(e.g., 60 day) time periods and in relation to growth stages. The ANCOVA model with genotype and
management intensity as fixed factors, and soil and weather parameters as covariates was proposed
to assess the expected wheat productivity in particular environments and the expected performance of each genotype (cultivar).