The importance of grains of legume plants for human feeding, specially black beans (Phaseolus vulgaris L.), has stimulated the breeders to select genotypes with high grains yield potential and wide adaptability to different conditions of cultivation in southern Brazil. The present work aimed at evaluating the reflexes of the genotype x environment interaction and its implications in the genetic gains of different selection approaches. The results revealed that the component of the interaction between genotype and environment overestimates the prediction of genetic parameters such as genetic variance and heritability. Differences among these estimates were observed apparently due to a high percentage of the complex part of the interaction. Besides, the genetic gains obtained with the direct selection were always superior to the indirect response. Comparatively, the pair of environments 1x3 revealed correlated response inferior and of opposite sign to the other estimates for the other pairs of environments studied. The first environment was the one which accumulated the higher interaction genotype by environment. It can be concluded that the interaction component has great relevance in the estimates of genetic gains, evidencing that this influence should be considered in the selection and in the recommendation of specific genotypes of bean breeding programs.
Phaseolus vulgaris L.; selection criterion; genotype x environment interaction
