Regionalização para o cultivo do feijão no Rio Grande do Sul com base na interação genótipo x ambiente.

Abstract

In Brazil, common bean (Phaseolus vulgaris L.) is cultivated in a range of ecologically differentiated environments. For being a culture highly influenced by the environment variation, its average productivity in the Country is unstable and low. An origin of this variation of productivity is the genotype x environment interaction, which has been one of the largest impediments for obtaining genotypes that maintain consistently high yield in the growing environments. The methods proposed for the exploration of the genotype x environment interaction are directed to the stability of the yield of the genotypes or to the regionalization of the growing locations. Most of the common bean genotypes registered for cultivation in Rio Grande do Sul evidences yield instability. The present research explored data from Rio Grande do Sul Common Bean State Trial ("Ensaio Estadual de Feijão" - EEF), executed at 24 locations in the period from 1987/88 to 1994/95, with considerable variation of genotypes and locations among those years. This research had two main objectives: (1) to evaluate the magnitude and the nature of the genotype x environment interaction and (2) to identify possible stratification of the growing region of common bean in the State in sub-regions inside of which the genotypes have stable relative performance. The inferences about the components of the interaction genotype x environment were proceeded by the joint analysis of each one of the eight years and the analyses of two subsets of four years and of the set of eight years. Because of the intent of obtaining a long time regionalization, general for the growing location of the Rio Grande do Sul and for any collection of beans genotypes, the factors year, location and genotype were considered random. The maximum likelihood and the generalized minimum squares methods were used. This approach allowed taking into account the incomplete and unbalanced structure of the data and the heterogeneity of variance of the experimental error. The results of the annual analyses revealed high significance of the component of the interaction genotype x location in all of the years, indicating that the relative performance of the genotypes varies among locations. This interaction was also revealed significant in the analysis of the eight years, but was not significant in the analyses of the two subsets four years. In these three joint analyses of years the triple interaction genotype x location x year was highly significant. The indication of heterogeneous performance of the genotypes among the locations and the possibility that the pattern of performance have some consistence along the years justified the attempt to the grouping of the locations. Cluster analyses were performed for each one of the eight years and for the set of eight years by the method of Sokal and Michener, that uses the Euclidean distance as similarity measure. The cluster analysis of the set of eight years constituted subregions that are generally incoherent with the sub-regions formed by the annual analyses that, by they turn, were inconsistent amongst themselves. This incoherence and inconsistency of groupings disabled the characterization of a division of the State for the regionalization of the indication of cultivars. It should be observed, however, that these evidences might have been influenced by the considerable alterations of the genotypes and of the locations of execution of the EEF among the years of the period from 1987/88 to 1994/95 in whose data they are based. They can also have resulted, partly, of flaws of the experimental techniques adopted in that period of execution of EEF, particularly of the accentuated variations of the sowing date and of the stand by plot.