Identification of Ideal Allele Combinations for the Adaptation of Spring Barley to Northern Latitudes.

Magnus Göransson,Marja Jalli,Lene Krusell,Jihad Orabi,Gunter Backes,Morten Lillemo,Therese Christerson,Merja Veteläinen,Jón Hallsteinn Hallsson,Stine Tuvesson,Muath Alsheikh,Jónatan Hermannsson,Birger Eriksen,Reino Aikasalo,Lars Reitan,Mika Isolahti,A Jahoor ,Rasmus L Hjortshøj ,B Gertsson ,Tommy Bengtsson

doi:10.3389/fpls.2019.00542

Magnus Göransson, Marja Jalli + Show 18 more

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https://doi.org/10.3389/fpls.2019.00542

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The northwards expansion of barley production requires adaptation to longer days, lower temperatures and stronger winds during the growing season. We have screened 169 lines of the current barley breeding gene pool in the Nordic region with regards to heading, maturity, height, and lodging under different environmental conditions in nineteen field trials over 3 years at eight locations in northern and central Europe. Through a genome-wide association scan we have linked phenotypic differences observed in multi-environment field trials (MET) to single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNP). We have identified an allele combination, only occurring among a few Icelandic lines, that affects heat sum to maturity and requires 214 growing degree days (GDD) less heat sum to maturity than the most common allele combination in the Nordic spring barley gene pool. This allele combination is beneficial in a cold environment, where autumn frost can destroy a late maturing harvest. Despite decades of intense breeding efforts relying heavily on the same germplasm, our results show that there still exists considerable variation within the current breeding gene pool and we identify ideal allele combinations for regional adaptation, which can facilitate the expansion of cereal cultivation even further northwards.

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Climate change has begun to negatively affect yield of cereal crops (Lesk et al, 2016) and is predicted to cause even further yield losses in many of the low latitude grain producing regions of the world (Dai, 2011; Rosenzweig et al, 2014)
For heading (PPP169/PPP124) and maturity (PPP124) we found a QTL located nearby the locus HvCry1b (Figure 4), which plays a role in the regulation of seed dormancy (Barrero et al, 2014), and has been reported as a putative heading associated gene (Alqudah et al, 2016)
Most lines in our study showed a low degree of straw breaking we identified one allele combination, GGA, with a significantly higher rate of straw breaking (Supplementary Figure S3)

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Climate change has begun to negatively affect yield of cereal crops (Lesk et al, 2016) and is predicted to cause even further yield losses in many of the low latitude grain producing regions of the world (Dai, 2011; Rosenzweig et al, 2014). Barley (Hordeum vulgare L.) is, alongside wheat, one Identification of Ideal Allele Combinations of the dominating cereal crops in the Nordic region, used primarily for feed and malt but with a growing demand for human consumption (Baik and Ullrich, 2008; Baik, 2016). Better understanding of the genetics underlying these traits will enable breeders to produce locally adapted high yielding cultivars for the Nordic and sub-arctic region, further expanding the current cultivation area northwards

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