Stability of seed oil quality traits in high and mid-oleic acid sunflower hybrids

Abstract

Seed oil content and composition are important considerations in sunflower breeding programmes because these traits are related to oil quality. They are complex traits that are determined by genotypic factors and environmental conditions. The objective of this study was to estimate the interaction between genotype and environment for oil content and major fatty contents in traditional, high and mid-oleic sunflower genotypes and to identify stable genotypes. Combined analyses of variance of oil, oleic and linoleic acid content of 16 genotypes tested over six locations showed highly significant mean squares for genotype, environment and the interaction between them. On average the mid-oleic and standard genotypes had similar oil contents, but the high oleic genotypes had lower oil contents than the standard genotypes. Stability analyses indicated that one standard, one high oleic and one mid-oleic genotype were relatively stable with average to above average oil content. One high oleic genotype was stable across locations with an oleic acid content of above 80 %. The unstable high oleic acid genotypes that showed variation for oleic acid content across locations may be a consequence of location, temperature and rainfall effects. With adequate location and planting dates, high and mid-oleic hybrids could be produced with oil that meets the oil quality standards.