Assessment of the ecological plasticity and stability of black currant cultivars in the Central Chernozem Region

Abstract

The aim of the research was to assess the ecological plasticity and stability of 14 domestic black currant cultivars of the bio resource collection of the Russian Research Institute of Fruit Crop Breeding using “yield” as the key trait. The work was carried out in 2023–2025 in the Orel Region (Central Chernozem Region). ‘Orlovskaya Serenada’, a black currant cultivar zoned in the Central Chernozem Region, was taken as a control. It was found that 2023 was the most favorable year for growing black currant (the environment index (Ii) – 0.54), while 2024 and 2025 were less favorable (Ii = -0.12 and -0.42, respectively). As a result of the study, there were identified 5 cultivars that significantly exceeded the reference cultivar in terms of yield during the study years: ‘Binar’,’Shaman’, ‘Zhuravushka’, ‘Kanakhama’, and ‘Streletz’ (6.30–7.34 t/ha). According to the regression coefficient, the intensive cultivars (bi>1) included ‘Binar’, ‘Shaman’, ‘Shuravushka’, ‘Streletz’, ‘Nezhdanchik’, ‘Arkadia’, and ‘Dobry Dzhinn’, at the same time, ‘Shaman’ had the highest level of plasticity (bi = 2.10). ‘Yulian’, ‘Avgustinka’, ‘Udaletz’ and ‘Ruslan’ were the neutral type cultivars (bi<1). ‘Vympel’ cultivar (bi ≈ 0) did not respond to changes in the environment. The control ‘Orlovskaya Serenada’ as well as 'Zhemchuzhina' and 'Kanakhama' were characterized by the full compliance of the cultivar with the growing conditions and their changes. According to the ecological stability index (𝝈𝒅𝟐) the cultivars ‘Avgustinka’, ‘Yulian’, and ‘Vympel’ were identified as the most stable among those studied; however, their yield did not exceed that of the control cultivar. Among the high-yielding cultivars, ‘Shaman’, ‘Kanakhama’, and ‘Streletz’ were the most stable. According to the method used, the optimal profile for a productive cultivar is a combination of bi equal to or close to 1 and a minimum environmental stability parameter 𝝈𝒅𝟐. The ‘Kanakhama’ cultivar was identified with this combination of statistical parameters (bi = 0.9; 𝝈𝒅𝟐 = 5.28), which would be considered as a stable-yielding cultivar (6.73 t/ha, CV = 22.24 %) and would be of interest as a source for breeding stable-yielding black currant cultivars.