| Abstract: | Oat (Avena sativa L.) is one of the most important forage crops in the Southern Great Plains of the United States. However, it is more sensitive to cold stress than other small grains. In this study, diverse oat germplasm was evaluated for winter survival across multiple years and locations in the region. Field screening started with an observation trial of 1,861 diverse genotypes in the 2012–2013 season and was followed by four seasons of replicated trials from 2013 to 2017. Selection of good winter survivors was started in 2014–2015 season. All trials were laid out in randomized complete blocks with replications of two in 2013–2014 and 2014–2015, four in 2015–2016, and three in 2016–2017. Winter survival was scored in a 1‐to‐9 scale. Data were analysed for each year and location separately. Additive main effects and multiplicative interaction (AMMI) analysis were carried out on combined data of 35 genotypes that were commonly grown in each year and location. Highly significant (p < 0.001) variations were observed among genotypes, environments and genotype‐by‐environment interaction (GEI). The first three interaction principal components (IPCs) were highly significant (p < 0.001), explaining 96% of GEI. Broad sense heritability ranged from 46% to 93%, while heritability for all environments combined was relatively low (24.6%). At the end of the two cycles (2014/2015‐to‐2016/2017) of selection, mean winter survival was improved by more than 38% per cycle compared with the base population mean. Genotypes CIav 4390, CIav 6909 and CIav 7618 showed significantly higher winter survival than the standard checks Okay and Dallas. Genotypes CIav 4390 showed 20% and 35% improvement over the standard checks Okay and Dallas, respectively. Winter survival improvement in oat will remain a difficult task because of high GEI and low heritability. The identified superior genotypes will be used as crossing parents to transfer cold tolerance genes to other elite lines. |
