The breeding of two-row winter-hardy barley

Abstract

It has been shown in these breeding investigations that it is possible to combine the winter hardiness of low-yielding varieties possessing characters unsuited for cultivation in this country, with many of the desirable features of the best two-row spring varieties at present grown for malting purposes. Although, with the production of the new hybrid variety Pioneer, a definite advance has been made in the production of a two-row winter barley for malting, there is no reason to suppose that further improvements cannot be made, and work is proceeding with this object in view. But in addition to the special problem of malting barley, the results so far obtained indicate that there is considerable scope in this hybridization of winter and spring varieties for the production of forms suitable for growing as feeding barleys. The hybridization of varieties differing so widely in their morphological and physiological characters, and also in their ecological adaptation, gives a wide basis for the selection of a great range of forms. On the other hand, distant hybridization of this type is liable to result in the production of a very high proportion of worthless material, involving the loss of the highest expression of the very specialized characters necessary in a barley possessing the attributes of a high-yielding malting variety with satisfactory field characters.