Spanish barley landraces outperform modern cultivars at low‐productivity sites

Abstract

Barley landraces from the western Mediterranean area have not been thoroughly exploited by modern breeding. This study aims at assessing the agronomic value of a core collection of lines derived from landraces of Spanish origin and to compare them with sets of successful old and modern cultivars. The agronomic performance of a set of 175 barley genotypes, comprising 159 landrace-derived lines and 26 cultivars, was evaluated in a series of 10 field trials, carried out over 3 years and several locations. The most relevant trait of the landraces was higher grain yield at low production sites than cultivars, which may be related with better ability to fill the grain under stressful conditions. On the other hand, lateness, excessive plant height and lodging were negative traits frequently found in the landraces. Large genotype-by-environment interaction (GEI) for grain yield was detected, related partly with differences between germplasm groups, probably indicating local adaptation. GEI was also associated with the interaction of heading time and powdery mildew resistance with temperature. Material and MethodsPlant material: A total of 182 genotypes were evaluated in field trials. The set comprised the following subsets: 145 six-row and 11 two-row This research was carried out at EEAD-CSIC, ITACyL-Valladolid and IRTA/UdL-Lleida. Spanish inbred lines, derived from landraces after at least three generations of head-to-row purification; sixteen old cultivars, widely used in Spain during the 20th century, eight two-row (Alpha, Beka, Hassan, Kym, Pallas, Union, Wisa and Zaida) and eight six-row (Ager, Albacete, Almunia, Barberousse, Dobla, Hatif de Grignon, Monlon and Pan e); and, finally, 10 cultivars, recently bred or currently grown in Spain, used as controls of good agronomic performance (Candela, Orria, Plaisant and Steptoe six-row; Gaelic, Graphic, Nevada, Seira, Tipper and Volga two-row). The first three groups, six-row and two-row landracederived inbred lines and old cultivars, constitute the Spanish Barley Core Collection (SBCC; Igartua et al. 1998).

Joining smallholder farmers’ traditional knowledge with metric traits to select better varieties of Ethiopian wheat

“…Modern varieties (MV) developed for high-input agriculture might not be suitable for the marginal growing conditions of smallholder farming 3–6 , as they cannot address the enormous diversity of environments and end-user needs 7–9 . In low input and high risk areas, landraces may be still chosen over MVs by local farmers 10 because of their better adaptation, higher market value and end product quality 11,12 . Recently, genomic methods have demonstrated that traditional landraces maintained either in situ 13 or ex situ 14 contain useful allelic variation for agronomic and disease resistance traits.…”

Large Differences in Gene Expression Responses to Drought and Heat Stress between Elite Barley Cultivar Scarlett and a Spanish Landrace

“…spontaneum ) and landraces, which are the primary source of useful genes for breeding programs (Fischbeck, 2003; Dawson et al, 2015). Furthermore, in environments with low productivity, landraces and old cultivars often outperform modern genotypes (Ceccarelli et al, 1998; Pswarayi et al, 2008; Yahiaoui et al, 2014). In comparison with wheat, barley has been grown in a wider range of environmental conditions, and is the predominant crop in marginal areas with little precipitation.…”

Barley Types and Varieties in Spain: A Historical Overview

“…In 1988, more than 30 years after its release, it was still sown in more than one million hectares, more than 50% of the Spanish barley acreage. By 2002, 69% of the semiarid dryland of Aragon acreage was still sown with Albacete (Yahiaoui et al, 2014).…”

“…Another study of this collection revealed that modern cultivars generally performed better than landraces in agronomic trials carried out in productive locations, but at low-production sites (with water stress and poor soil), some landraces performed better than all modern cultivars. This means that there are genetic features in landraces that could be used to enhance the adaptation of modern cultivars to stressful environments (Yahiaoui et al, 2014).…”