Effects of ecological factors on spring Barley genotypes

Abstract

Late spring frosts and drought are the most important abiotic stress factors that definite the yield and quality performance of spring barley genotypes in breeding programs. For this purpose, a total of 25 spring barley genotypes were used in the study, including 20 advanced line and 5 standard varieties. The 2013/14 growing season, in which the late spring frosts were effective, and the 2012/13 growing season were compared with the biplot technique in terms of yield, quality and other features. Depending on the late spring frosts, significant differences were determined between the genotypes in terms of grain yield, quality parameters and other characteristics between the two growing seasons. Late spring frosts caused a significant reducing in grain yield (GY) by 26.2%, hectoliter weight (HW) by 6.3%, and in thousand grain weight (TGW) by 18.6%, while increasing protein content (PC) by 18.3%. It has been determined that the early spiked spring barley genotypes are more affected than the late spiked genotypes from late spring frosts, in terms of GY, TW, TGW and PC. The GGE biplot analysis showed that four distinct groups of traits were occured in the 2012/2013 and five in 2013/2014 growing seasons, respectively. The result of GGE biplot indicated that G14, G19, G21 and Samyeli variety were stable and ideal genotypes for all of the traits in the 2012/2013 season, and G3, G4, G7 and G8 were stable and ideal for the 2013/2014 season. On the other hand; G3 was the best genotype against late spring frost based on GY. In addition, results from the AMMI (Additive Main Effects and Multiplicative Interaction) analysis revealed that genotypes G7, G8, and G22 were more stable and higher yielding, compared to the other genotypes.