Potential of Iranian wild barley (Hordeum vulgare ssp. spontaneum) in breeding for drought tolerance

Abstract

The vast genetic resources of wild barley (Hordeum vulgare ssp. spontaneum, hereafter WB) may hold unique assets for improving barley (H. vulgare ssp. vulgare) cultivars for drought stress. To evaluate genetic potential and characterization of variation among a diverse collection of barley and WB genotypes, mostly originated from Iran, a field experiment was performed under three moisture environments (control, mild and intense drought stress) during two years (2012-2014). Considerable variation was observed among the wild and cultivated genotypes for drought tolerance and agronomic traits. Principal component analysis (PCA) grouped genotypes studied into three groups (WB, two-row barley and sixrow barley groups). However, Iranian and foreign WB genotypes were not completely separated, showing a high variation within both gene pools. The high significance of genotype by environment interaction, confirms importance of using accurate target environments for drought stress breeding. A number of WB genotypes with the highest values of the number of tillers, number of seed per spike, seed weight, grain yield and yield stability index under stressed environments were identified as superior genotypes. Most of these genotypes originate from Iran, highlighting the importance of this germplasm in barley breeding.

Traits discovery in Hordeum vulgare sbsp. spontaneum accessions and in lines derived from interspecific crosses with wild Hordeum species for enhancing barley breeding efforts

“…Many studies have reported the richness of H. spontaneum accessions with respect to genes for resistance to major diseases (Abbott, Brown, & Burdon, 1991; Brian, Steffenson, & Bockelman, 1995; Fetch, Steffenson, & Nevo, 2003; Oğuz, Karakaya, & İsmail, 2018; Sato & Takeda, 1997; Tombuloglu et al., 2015), tolerance to major drought and salinity stresses (Barati et al., 2018; Chen et al., 2009; Ebrahim, Arzani, Rahimmalek, Sun, & Peng, 2019; Nevo & Chen, 2010; Wang et al., 2018; Yan, Chen, Cheng, Nevo, & Gutterman, 2008) and end‐use quality traits (Cai et al., 2013; Yan et al., 2008). This diversity is extensively used in breeding programs (Nevo et al., 1992) and it is estimated that 40% of the alleles are common between H. spontaneum and cultivated barley (Ellis et al., 2000; Tombuloglu et al., 2015).…”

Exploring Wild Hordeum spontaneum and Hordeum marinum Accessions as Genetic Resources for Fungal Resistance

“…We aimed to characterize the general diversity of the Hordeum CWR set, which, according to recent studies, could serve as a source of valuable genes needed in current barley breeding [ 10 , 34 , 35 ]. Special attention was paid to the resistance to biotic stresses, namely resistance to fungal diseases, which is in continuous demand, globally, for all crops [ 36 ], since pathogens spreading at a continental scale can have a strong impact on plant health.…”

“…Wild barley has been shown to be a donor of new alleles, conferring resistance to abiotic stresses such as salinity and drought, and biotic stresses such as powdery mildew, which are unique assets for barley improvement, especially in a changing climate [ 10 , 11 , 12 ].…”