Development of Composite Stability Measure using Multi Criteria Decisions Making (MCDM) Techniques

Abstract

One of the most important challenges facing Indian agriculture is to provide food & nutritional security for rural resource-poor communities in the wake of decreasing land holdings. Hence, selection of suitable cultivar or variety for specific environment is very much essential. The farmer’s risk can be minimized and it may improve their economic condition through selection of stable genotypes by using a suitable stability measure. Evaluation of genotypes on the basis of stability measure is essential for yield trials in different environments. Though, large numbers of stability measures are available in literature, but deciding the proper stability measure for selecting stable genotypes is problematic. Multiple Criteria Decision-Making (MCDM) technique or Technique for Order Preference by Similarity to Ideal Solution (TOPSIS) has been employed to develop the proposed measure. In the present study, a suitable composite measure is developed by combining several methods into a single aggregate method by using MCDM technique, for selecting suitable genotypes which would be stable to environmental variations.