<b>Adaptability and stability of strawberry cultivars using a mixed model

Abstract

Although strawberry crops have a strong socio-economic impact on the agricultural sector of Espírito Santo State, there are few studies on the performance of strawberry cultivars in different locations and years under a low tunnel management system (LT). Therefore, this study aimed to estimate the parameters of adaptability and stability of strawberry cultivars under LT-protected cultivation using the harmonic mean of the relative performance of genetically predicted values. Seven strawberry cultivars were assessed (‘Dover’, ‘Camino Real’, ‘Ventana’, ‘Camarosa’, ‘Seascape’, ‘Diamante’ and ‘Aromas’) in the agricultural years 2006/7, 2007/8 and 2008/9 in three locations in the mountainous region of Espírito Santo State. The experiment was arranged in a randomized block design, with 3 replications and 15 plants per plot. The analysis of deviance for the yield (ton. ha^-1) demonstrated that only the effects of genotype and the triple interaction genotype x location x year were significant, which indicates the presence of genetic variability among the cultivars and the inconsistency of the position among the genotypes for combinations of year and location. Considering the selection for yield, adaptability and stability, in LT-protected cultivation, cultivars Camarosa and Aromas are highlighted for expressing average values that were 22% higher than the overall mean of the cultivars (24.55 ton. há^-1) in the environments assessed.