An Appraisal of Line Performance in Upland Cotton (Gossypium hirsutum L.) Breeding Trials in Northern Nigeria Using the Performance Index Approach

The importance of genotype x environment interactions reflects the necessity of evaluating genotypes in more than a single environment. The plant breeder selects superior genotypes for eventual release as commercial varieties based on a rating of these genotypes across varied environments for stability/adaptability. This paper describes the performance of ten advanced cotton lines in experiments replicated over two seasons and four locations in northern Nigeria. A rating of the ten Unes across environments was also attempted using the performance index approach. The Unes SAMCOT-10 and ACSA (79) 5B were the most outstanding in yield performance across years and locations while ASA (74) 80 and RASA (78) 11A were the lowest in performance. The use of the performance index approach in the rating of cultivars across varied environments is recommended because of ease of computation and interpretation when the number of entries and test environments are large