Variation of spring barley agronomic traits significant for adaption to climate change in latvian breeding programmes

Breeding programmes have been recently challenged by climate change. Spring barley (Hordeum vulgare L.) yield, phenological traits (days to heading, length of filling period and days to maturity) and resistance to powdery mildew and net blotch, which are influenced by the rising temperature and precipitation, along with threshability in hulless, were evaluated and their genetic and environmental variability were determined. One hundred and ninety spring barley genotypes were studied, including 129 hulless genotypes and 61 hulled genotypes. The genotypes were grown in the State Stende Cereal Breeding Institute and State Priekuļi Plant Breeding Institute for three seasons during 2007-2009. Broad-sense heritability estimated on the basis of genotypical and phenotypical variances for all traits of hulled barley varied from 31 to 98, and 42 to 98% for hulless barley. For both types of barley the highest heritability was observed for days to heading, filling period and days to maturity. Despite the relatively high estimated heritability for all traits, nevertheless, location, year and interaction of genotype and environment were also been significant for all traits.