SEARCH FOR THE CORRELATION BETWEEN ALLELIC POLYMORPHISM OF THE PPD AND VRN GENES WITH THE VARIABILITY OF THE MAIN ECONOMICALLY VALUABLE TRAITS OF WINTER BARLEY

Abstract

Winter barley is an important agricultural crop whose grain is used for fodder and food purposes. The main advantage of winter barley over spring barley is in an earlier ripening period, the ability to use winter and early spring moisture reserves, due to which winter barley produces a yield in 1.5–2 times higher than spring barley. Because of increasing climate aridity in the south of the country, the development of early ripening winter barley varieties, as well as varieties with an alternative type of development (facultative wheat) is of great importance. The length of the growing period (especially ‘sprouts-earing’ phase) and responsiveness to barley vernalization is controlled by the Ppd and Vrn genetic systems. It is known that the Ppd and Vrn genes have a pleiotropic effect, that is, they affect many traits, including the general adaptability and seed productivity of plants. Therefore, among the analyzed traits, the dependence of which on the allelic diversity of the genes is required to be established, there should be present not only the starting time of earing and responsiveness to vernalization, but also other economically valuable traits (productivity parameters, lodging degree, etc.). The purpose of the study was to establish the influence of allelic polymorphism of the studied genes on the variability of the main economically valuable traits. The object of the research was 94 varieties of local (Zernograd, Rostov region, Russia) and other district breeding. It has been identified that the research tests were successful for only one of the five tested marker systems. It was the marker system for the Vrn-H2 gene, which determines the type of barley development (winter, spring, facultative). The polymorphism of the Vrn-H2 gene significantly influences on the protein percentage in the kernels and on the resistance of varieties to lodging.