Abstract
In the coming decades, climate change and resources constraints will make profitable and economically reliable agriculture more and more challenging. To evaluate the potential of exotic alleles to maintain performance under low nitrogen input, we investigated a set of 41 introgression lines (S42ILs) originating from the hybridization of the German spring barley ‘Scarlett’ and the Israeli wild barley ‘ISR42-8’. These lines were assessed in field trials for yield, yield components, grain protein content and chlorophyll content during growing seasons 2015 and 2016 in two different test sites in Germany under low and high nitrogen supply levels, N0 and N1. Our analyses revealed 17 regions for putative quantitative trait loci (QTL), linked to one or multiple traits, across all chromosomes. In particular, lines S42IL_119 and S42IL_121 exhibited an enhanced thousand grain weight of 7% and 9% under N1 and N0, respectively. In addition, six QTL were found for grain number per ear leading to a decline of grain number of up to 20%. Furthermore, three new QTL for chlorophyll content could be identified on chromosomes 1H and 2H. The present study revealed QTL effects of wild barley introgressions in a spring barley elite background, especially under low nitrogen. The selection for nitrogen efficient lines with beneficial exotic alleles represents the first step towards the development of spring barley cultivars genetically adapted to nitrogen limitations.
Highlights
A major challenge of agriculture is the economic, ecological and sustainable production of crops irrespective of the existing conditions (Christen 2000)
For Grain surface area (GRA), the Hsp alleles at all quantitative trait loci (QTL) provoked an increase and the strongest effect was observed in line S42IL_121, where trait performance was increased by 10.5% under N0 treatment
In the present study we evaluated 41 introgression lines (S42ILs) that arose from interbreeding the German elite spring barley cultivar ‘Scarlett’ with the Israeli wild barley accession ‘ISR42-8’
Summary
A major challenge of agriculture is the economic, ecological and sustainable production of crops irrespective of the existing conditions (Christen 2000). Plant growth and yield formation are influenced by various determinants, such as drought, nitrogen or salt stress. These extreme conditions can cause prematurity and devastating yield losses. Since crops obtain nutrients from water-soluble compounds in the ground, such as nitrate, the amount of required fertilizer depends on the availability of mineralized N in the soil (Stark and Brown 1987), application time and N use efficiency of the genotype (Delogu et al 1998). Using more N efficient cultivars could lead to more stable productivity under limiting conditions and, these cultivars can play a major role in crop rotations
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