Soil salinity is one of the main factors limiting cereal productivity in worldwide agriculture. Exploitation of natural variation in local barley germplasm is an effective approach to overcome yield losses. Three gene pools of North African Hordeum vulgare L. grown in Tunisia, Algeria and Egypt were evaluated at the reproductive stage under control and saline conditions. Assessment of stress tolerance was monitored using morphological, yield-related traits and phenological parameters of reproductive organs showing significant genetic variation. High heritability and positive relationships were found suggesting that some traits associated with salt tolerance could be used as selection criteria. The phenotypic correlations revealed that vegetative traits including shoot biomass, tiller number and leaf number along with yield-related traits such as spike number, one spike dry weight, grain number/plant and grain number/spike were highly positively correlated with grain yield under saline conditions. Hence, these traits can be used as reliable selection criteria to improve barley grain yield. Keeping a higher shoot biomass and longer heading and maturity periods as well as privileged filling ability might contribute to higher grain production in barley and thus could be potential target traits in barley crop breeding toward improvement of salinity tolerance. Multiple selection indices revealed that salt tolerance trait index provided a better discrimination of barley landraces allowing selection of highly salt-tolerant and highly productive genotypes under severe salinity level. Effective evaluation of salt tolerance requires an integration of selection indices to successfully identify and characterize salt tolerant lines required for valuable exploitation in the management of salt-affected areas.
Soil salinity is a major abiotic stress in worldwide agriculture. This has incited a quest towards with an aim of improving the crop plants. An insight into the diversity of barley landraces for salinity tolerance will facilitate their use in genetic improvement and breeding programs. Three gene pools representative of Hordeum vulgare L. grown in the North African region and collected from Tunisia, Algeria and Egypt were evaluated at the reproductive stage under non saline and two saline conditions (0, 100 and 200 mM NaCl). A total of 26 agronomic, morphological and yield-related traits were examined by analysis of variance. A significant genetic variation was observed. We successfully identified a set of accessions originating from severe agroclimatic conditions including Tozeur2, Tichedrett, Kerkena and Kebelli2 which remaining the most productive at high salinity having around 4 g grain yield production per plant and about 11 g whole plant dry weight per plant. Cluster analysis and principal component analysis were performed using salt tolerance index (STI), which provided a clear separation of barley landraces. The first three principal components (PC) contributed 64.05% and 66.01% of the variability amongst genotypes at moderate and high salinity level, respectively, with PC1 comprising yield-related traits. Significant number of highly salt tolerant genotypes grouping Early1, Tichedrett, Azrir and Giza125 from North African harsh environment was identified. Data indicate that specific barley genotypes showing differential responses against salinity could be useful as potential germplasm sources for comparative genomic studies and future breeding programs.
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