Genotype-Environment Interactions in Egg Production Stocks of Chickens

ALTHOUGH genotype by environment interactions in egg production stocks may be statististically significant for some traits, they appear to be of minor importance (Tindell et al., 1967; Marks et al., 1969). These studies demonstrated the explained variation attributable to genotype by environment interactions to be of low magnitude for most egg production traits. While conflicting results have been characteristic of earlier reports, the stock by location interaction for egg production was also observed to be unimportant by Gutteridge and O’Neil (1942), Gowe and Wakely (1954), Hull and Gowe (1962), Hill and Nordskog (1956), Abplanalp and Marrou (1961), and Becker (1961). Contrariwise, Nordskog and Kempthorne (1960) and Krause et al. (1965) observed this interaction to be significant in their studies. This study is the third in a series conducted by participants of the Southern Regional Poultry Breeding Project (S-57) to determine the importance of genotype by environment interactions in egg production…