Evaluation of environmental stress-tolerance in barley varieties by capillary electrophoresis

Abstract

Varieties of barley were cultured with and without drought stress and an osmoregulatory cellu- lar component, glycine betaine, was determined by capillary electrophoresis. The relation between the betaine levels and stress-tolerance in the varieties was surveyed. The salt stress-tol- erant and -sensitive varieties were well discriminated by the betaine levels in the seedlings of bar- ley cultured under stressed and unstressed conditions. Also, the betaine levels could discrimi- nate between African and Japanese varieties, presumably due to the climate difference between the two areas. It was found that glycine betaine is a good candidate as a probe in selecting envi- ronmental stress-tolerant plant species.