Dario Dunković

Selection of testing environments for winter wheat breeding

Stability of cultivars across different environments is one of the main goals in winter wheat breeding programs. Much attention has been devoted to analysing cultivar by environment (C x E) interactions to improve crop breeding efforts (Thomason and Philips, 2006 ; Sio-Se Mardeh et al., 2006 ; Hoffman et al., 2005 ; Pepo and Gyi ri, 2005). Ideal genotype would have, in all environments same high yield. Research work was conducted on four test locations in Eastern Croatia - Zupanja, Nova Gradiska, Kutjevo and Osijek - during four vegetation years, 2002/2003 – 2005/2006. Three winter wheat cultivars - Zitarka, Sana and Divana were chosen for the research due to their high yielding performance and good quality. Cultivars were planted in the randomised block design with four replications. Basic plot was 10 m2 with 25 rows and spaced 40 cm apart from other plot.Genotype-environment interaction proved to be very important in winter wheat breeding. For the selection of high yielding and stable genotypes several locations should be included in trials. Selection of locations should be made according to several stability parameters. In this research work all three stability parameters showed low stability of location Kutjevo. Also, there was high correlation between locations Kutjevo and Nova Gradiska. Therefore, location Kutjevo can be excluded from further winter wheat trials in Eastern Croatia.

RETAILER PRICING STRATEGY: DIFFUSE COUPONS EFFECTS CONTINGENT ON STORE FORMAT

Retail promotion strategies have become an increasingly prominent topic of research due to innovations aimed at helping the management attract customers to their online and offline sales channels. Various promotional and technology tools are being tested to select the ones that will facilitate multi-channel sales. Stores no longer use the model “the same price for everyone” because sophisticated marketing software enables pricing to be tailored to customers with a view to keeping them engaged. Special offer and discount coupons (i.e. POS coupons, FIS and e-coupons) have become a vital part of the retail pricing strategy and a widely used promotional tool in which retailers invest significant marketing resources to create a competitive effect. The paper sets out the concept of promotion pricing and identifies the role of diffuse promotional coupons designed to help retailers attain their marketing and profitability goals. An empirical analysis is performed to determine the effects of coupons in a dynamic Every-Day-Low-Prices (EDLP) strategy employed by a large retail chain using a customer basket records. A univariate statistical analysis (GLM) is carried out to analyse cart data from nearly 25,000 transactions recorded in the course of one year in seven stores. The results of the analysis reveal the effects of most common three types of coupons on basket operational profitability in different store format context. The empirical results obtained from this research and insights gained into the effects of this type of promotion can help retail managers form reasonable expectations regarding the introduction of coupons in retail chain organizations.