Production Traits of Oats Selected under Low, Medium, and High Productivity1

Abstract

Selection for yield (10% intensity) was carried out in two groups of random oat (Avena saliva L.) lines (group T and group G contained 200 and 480 lines, respectively) under low‐, medium‐, and high‐productivity conditions. Selected lines from each selection condition were tested for mean, response, and stability of yield, in evaluation experiments that encompassed production environments from low to high.Actual gains in mean yield from selection averaged across the three selection environments were 16 and 7% in the T and G groups, respectively. Actual advances were 16, 13, and 18% of the population mean under low, medium, and high productivity, respectively, for group T, and 7, 5, and 8%, respectively, for group G. In each group, advances from selection under high and low productivities were superior to that from medium productivity. There was no superiority for one selection condition over another for either response or stability of yield.Lines selected only under low or medium productivity gave mean yields not significantly greater than the respective group means, whereas those selected only under high productivity gave significantly greater ones. The number of lines common to the samples selected under low, medium, and high productivity were three for group T and six for group G. These lines averaged 20% greater than the group means for yield, and were significantly superior under low, medium, and high productivity.Low‐ and high‐productivity conditions were nearly equal for selecting high‐yielding lines of oats, and both were somewhat superior to medium productivity. However, a detailed analysis showed that high productivity tended to differentiate high‐yielding lines best. The most superior lines for all conditions of production were those chosen in all three selection environments and those chosen in both low and high productivity.