Spike index stability of bread wheat grown on halomorphic soil

Bread wheat is one of the most important crops in the world. Wheat breeding has been based on science and has been constantly evolving due to breeding program improvements. Improving yield potential, resistance/tolerance to biotic and abiotic stresses, and baking quality are priorities for breeding this cereal. Soil and climatic conditions are one of the most important factors affecting the grain yield of wheat. During the two vegetation seasons, phenotypic variability and genotype by environment interaction (GEI) for spike index of eleven wheat genotypes were studied under specific growing conditions of halomorphic soil, solonetz type. The combined ANOVA showed that the phenotypic expression of spike index was significantly influenced by environmental variations, because the significant variance explained 48.8 % of the total variation, while genotype contributed with 7.8 % of the total variation of the experiment. The first source of variation IPCA1 explained 55.6 % of the GEI variation for the spike index of wheat. Genetics analysis of different wheat genotypes grown in different agro-ecological conditions contributes to their better utilization, as well as, selection for crosses in wheat breeding programs.