Genetic variability of irrigated barley in savanna environments based on malting quality

Abstract

The Brazilian savanna has the potential to support the national demand for barley providing an opportunity to the agricultural business in the region. The barley breeding program of Embrapa Cerrados pursues the selection of superior genotypes, adapted to the savanna conditions, with industrial quality and high grain yields. This work sought to characterise and quantify the genetic variability of 38 elite genotypes of irrigated barley in the Brazilian savanna from industrial grade traits, verifying the degree of association between quality characters and analysing the genetic distance from the ideotype. Twelve traits of malting quality were evaluated in two environments of the Distrito Federal. A descriptive analysis of the data was performed, the genetic dissimilarity coefficients were estimated between each genotype pair based on the Mean Euclidean Distance, the genotype-ideotype distance index, the Pearson correlation and the relative contribution of each trait to Singh's genetic diversity of evaluated traits. There were dependency relationships between malting traits for the evaluated environments. Such associations facilitate the indirect selection of genotypes, increasing the efficiency of the breeding program. The use of selection indices allows the choice of promising genotypes that can be explored in blocks of crosses to maximise heterotic effects and genetic complementarity in the genetic breeding program of irrigated barley in the Brazilian savanna.Additional supporting information may be found online in the Supporting Information section at the end of the article.Genetic variability of irrigated barley in savanna environments based on malting quality