Floatation, a Bulk-Selection Method for Breeders which Permits the Selection of Faster Modifying Barley Grains

Abstract

We have confirmed that floatation in salt solutions can be used to separate less-dense, more mealy, lower nitrogen-containing barley from more dense barley with less good malting quality having more steely grains and higher nitrogen contents. This gives breeders a useful tool for mass-selecting barley with potentially favourable characteristics for malting. We have now shown that green malt can be fractionated by floatation on sucrose solutions into fractions the least dense of which contains grains which are the most completely modified. This allows grains that have malted well to be selected. Using this novel technique it has been possible to substantially enrich fractions with green malt corns of the better quality malting variety when mixtures of a good and a less-good malting barley had been micromalted. The green malt fractions can be grown on to maturity. This technique gives breeders a powerful mass-selection tool for enriching their genetically mixed breeding lines with strains of better malting quality. This approach should be particularly powerful if applied several times in successive generations. The best results are likely to be obtained by fractionating the barley, collecting the lightest material, micromalting it and then collecting the lightest fraction of the green malt for further propagation.