BARLEY BREEDING AND GENETICS

Overall Goal:This project is aimed at enhancing the contribution that barley can make to healthy agricultural production systems. This can be accomplished by 1) delivering high yielding and disease resistant varieties to producers; 2) helping to insure adequate and stable supply of high quality barley to the end-users in the region; and 3) exploring alternative end-uses and production systems that achieve the above goals and provide valuable ecosystem services.Objectives:1. Develop barley varieties that support cropping systems that create value for growers, end-users, consumers and protect natural resources1.1 Six-rowed spring barley1.2 Six-rowed facultative barley1.3 Two-rowed spring barley1.4 Two-rowed facultative barley1.5 Naked (hulless) barley2. Develop and evaluate breeding methodologies.2.1 Investigate the effect of environment training data sets on performance in diverse target environments.2.2 Evaluate the value of predicting parent combinations that maximize superior progeny mean and reduce unfavorable linkages.3. Investigate the genetics of important traits in barley.3.1 Disease resistance a) Fusarium head blight / DON b) stem rust c) bacterial leaf streak3.2 Malting quality3.3 Winter survival4. Contribute to the education of graduate students.