Exploiting and Utilizing the Novel Annual Wild Barleys Germplasms on the Qing-Tibetan Plateau

Abstract

Novel germplasm is becoming increasingly important for developing crop varieties with high yield potential, better quality, and abiotic or biotic resistance. Wild relatives of crops have been received increasingly more attention as gene donors, for which they have much more genetic diversity than cultivars and for which earlier difficulties of sexual isolation in gene transfer using conventional methods can now be overcome by the development of new biological techniques. Annual wild barleys, H. spontaneum, H. agriocrithon, and H. paradoxon, which mainly exist in the Near East Fertile Crescent and Qing-Tibetan Plateau, share the same genome as cultivated barley does and are completely interfertile. By using cytology, plant physiology, biochemistry, genetics, traditional genetic breeding techniques, and modern biotechnology, we have systematically evaluated important agronomic, biological, and quality traits for more than 200 annual wild barley accessions collected from Qing-Tibetan Plateau since 1978. We have successfully identified and created a batch of germplasms with early maturity, male sterility, salt tolerance, aluminum resistance, high protein, and specific malt quality, respectively. Some of them were successfully used in barley breeding program, such as Chuanluo NO. 1 (early maturity and dwarf), 88BCMS (nucleo-cytoplasmic male sterile line), and 5199 (super early heading and cold resistance). Others being used include 69 accessions with preharvest spouting resistance, 20 accessions with aluminum resistance, seven accessions with salt tolerance, and two accessions with drought tolerance. We also examined the relationship between the annual wild barleys of Qing-Tibetan Plateau and other barley germplasm resources and the genetic improvement potential in malt quality, nutritional quality, and stress resistance. The genetic characters of some important traits including male sterility, super early heading, and dwarfing trait were characterized. Annual wild barley germplasm in Qing-Tibetan Plateau has been successfully utilized in modern barley breeding in China. We successively released 13 commercial barley varieties that have integrated the genes from annual wild barley germplasm in Qing-Tibetan Plateau during 1992–2011, indicating the great potential of the annual wild barleys in Qing-Tibetan Plateau in the genetic improvement of barley. These commercial varieties have some excellent traits, such as early maturity, dwarfism multiresistance, high-yield potential, and high quality, which can be used to exploit the prepared rows of cotton or corn as well as winter fallow field in South China. We initiated and implemented the complete idea of utilizing the prepared row of cotton and corn as well as winter fallow field using early-mature and dwarf barley varieties. By well planning, it can solve the problem of field competition of crop for barley production in the Yangtze valley, greatly promote the development and utilization of winter fallow field, and increase the efficient use of land resources in cotton and corn throughout the year.