KS Brar*, V P Mittal, Paramjit Singh and M S Kang¹

Punjab Agricultural University, Regional Station, Bathinda (Punjab)-151 001

¹ Vice Chancellor, Punjab Agricultural University, Ludhiana (Punjab)-141 001

*Corresponding author brar164@hotmail.com

Infuture climate change scenarios projected in 2080 is to rise in mean temperature 4.7°C, will shorten the crop cycle by inducing early flowering and grain filling period coupled with less  5-25% of winter rains in northern and central parts of India. Thus, decrease in Indian mustard crop productivity is the most worrisome consequence of climate change as it will reduce in yield of Indian mustard 15.7% and 40.3%, respectively in irrigated and rainfed conditions. Hence, there is urgent need to develop breeding strategies to cope with changing climate scenario for the sustainability of productivity.

Thus, GGEBiplot analysis of Line x tester 66 F₁ crosses involving six cultivars viz., RH 30, RL 1359, RL 198, Kranti, PBR 91 and Geeta as lines and eleven testers RN 573, SKM 149, SKM 9927, RM 11, Krishna, NRCDR 02, RK 02, NPJ 93, PBR 300, PBR 303 and PBR 253 were evaluated for two years 2008-09 and 2009-10 under optimum, delayed sowing and brackish water use conditions in Punjab province of India,  to examine the combining abilities and heterotic patterns and identification of appropriate testers. Significant differences among hybrids across environments were observed for seed yield per plant. The biplot of the line x tester data explained 74.2% of the total variability across the environment.  PBR 300 found to a good tester for wide adaptability, due to their high magnitude and acute angle of cosine with ideal tester. RL 1359 x PBR 300, BPR 91 x SKM 149 and Geeta x NRCDR 02 showed heterotic effects across the environments for seed yield. The present study revealed that PBR 303, SKM 149 and PBR 300 respectively, were ideal testers for discriminating the GCA of lines for delayed, optimum and brackish water sowing conditions to generate germplasm adaptive to the changing climatic conditions of this region for sustainable productivity of this crop.