Breeding dual-purpose barley

Abstract

During winters in West Asia and North Africa, barley crops are often grazed at an early stage of growth, and then allowed to recover to produce grain. This paper reports a project aimed at developing dual-purpose genotypes which have a high forage yield for early drazing as well as a high grain and straw yield after garazing, and at identifying characters that help to select such genotypes. Defoliation by mowing was used to simulate grazing. As expected, grain yield without simulated grazing had little, if any, correlation with grain yield after simulated grazing. A number of lines suitable for dual-purpose use were identified and the performance of the two most promising lines is reported. Days to heading or maturity appeared to be the main factor affecting yields while tiller number, head number and plant height were less important. The dual-purpose lines tended to be later-heading than the usual grain types. The possible bias created by the procedures used in the experiments and the advantages of simulated grazing are discussed.