Indian Joz~wzal ofAgriczrltztral Sciences 77 (9) : 596-9, September 2007 Nona-parametric measure of stability for yield and morphine content in opium poppy [P~praveu somrz~ererm)* HEMANT K YADAV', SUDHIR SHUKLA2, ANU USTOG13 and SANT P SINGH4 Natio~nl Botn~zical Research Institute, Lucknow, Uttar Pradesh 226 001 Received: 15 May 2006 Key words: Opium poppy, Papaver somnifel-zlm, Won-parametric measure, Genotypes x environment interaction Opium poppy (Pnpaver sornniferum L.) has been a most important crop since antiquity for pharmaceutical purposes. The crop is highly sensitive towards climatic conditions. Unfavourable climatic conditions like high wind velocity, sudden variations in temperature during lancing, dew fall etc severely bampers the latex yield potentiality of the crop (Shukla and Singh 2004). So the identification of such genotypes which can sustain adverse climatic/ environmental conditions is an urgent need of today. The prediction of high yielding adaptable genotypes for commercial cultivationunder such environmental conditions can be easily sorted out based on genotype x environment (G x E) interaction study which is associated with the differential performance of material tested at different locations/years (Annichiaric:, 1997, Singh and Shukla 2001, Singh et al. 2005). Keeping this in view, the present study was carried out to identify stable and promising genotypes based on non- parametric model from a set of advance breeding material of opiumpoppy (Pnpaversornnifenun L.) evaluated over 5 years. The materials used for present investigation comprised 1 1 advance and pure breeding lines, viz 'BR 229', 'BR 238', 'BR 243', 'BR 291', 'BR 307', 'BR 313', 'BR 328', 'BR 330', 'BR 333', 'BR 335' and 'BR 336' of opium poppy obtained through intra-and inter-specific hybridization under various breeding programmes. The experiments were carried out during the year 1999-2000 to 2003-2004 in a randomized block design with 3 replications at the experimental field of the Institute, Lucknow. The plot size was 4.8 myhaving eight rows 25 crn apart). Plants were spaced I0 crn apart within rows. Standard cultural practices were followed throughout the crop season. The middle 6 rows were used as harvest area of each plot for opium latex (mgiplant) and seed yield (glplant). Opium latex was collected from fully grown green capsules and subsequently seeds were harvested from the dried capsules. Morphine (%) in opium sample was estimated following the method of Pride and Stern (1954). The original raw data were transformed to corrected yield data before calculating the non-parametric statistics as (Muehn 1990a): xs* = xij -( Zi .- X...] where, Xij, phenotypic value of I genotype in j~ environment - (i= 1, 2 ...... , K; j= 1, 2 ....... , N); Xi,, marginal mean of - genotype i and X , over all mean in K x N table The mean values of each trait were subjected to combined analysis of variance followed by stability analyses using Huehn (1 990a). The corrected yield data for seed and opium yield and morphine content of 1 1 opium poppy genotypes within each environment are presented in Table 1. The ranking of genotypes based on corrected data was considered for stability characterization of genotypes independent from yield level effects. The genotype with highest adjusted yield was given rank of 1 1 and a genotype with the lowest adjusted yield was assigned a rank of 1 (Table 1). A genotype is to be considered stable over environnlents if its rank is similar over environments. The rank stability measure of Nassar and H u h (19871, ie S,")and S," for all the traits were calculated to draw the biplot over mean yield data of different traits and their respective S,(IJ and S,(2'values in order to facilitate quick visual inspection and Intel-pretation of stability across the tested environments based on rank measured vs yield performance. The ranking of genotypes for opium yield (Table 1) revealed that genotype 'BR 330' occupied top position with yield ranks of 4,9,10,9 and 9 and 'BR307' occurred at bottom of rank with yield ranks of 10,4,1,3 and 3 across environments. The plots drawn utilizing mean of opium yield against S,"' and S,'" (Figlb) portrayed that the 'BR 238': 'BR 333' and 'BR 229' which appeared in section *Short note 1 were considered as stable and kvell-adapted to all 'Senior Research Fello\qt, 'Senior scientist, 3 Project Assistant environments. The genotypes 'BR 33O', 'BR 243'. 'BR 328' 11. -'Scientist F and Head, Gcnetics and Plant Breeding Division and "BR 335' appear in section 2 which descsibe that these