BEST LINEAR UNBIASED PREDICTION (BLUP) FOR REGIONAL YIELD TRIALS - A COMPARISON TO ADDITIVE MAIN EFFECTS AND MULTIPLICATIVE INTERACTION (AMMI) ANALYSIS

Multilocation trials are often used to analyse the adaptability of gen otypes in different environments and to find for each environment the genotype that is best adapted; i.e. that is highest yielding in that e nvironment. For this purpose, it is of interest to obtain a reliable e stimate of the mean yield of a cultivar in a given environment. This a rticle compares two different statistical estimation procedures for th is task: the Additive Main Effects and Multiplicative Interaction (AMM I) analysis and Best Linear Unbiased Prediction (BLUP). A modification of a cross validation procedure commonly used with AMMI is suggested for trials that are laid out as a randomized complete block design. Th e use of these procedure is exemplified using five faba bean datasets from German registration trails. BLUP was found to outperform AMMI in four of five faba bean datasets.