Pre-anthesis development of winter wheat and barley and relationships with grain yield

Abstract

The aim of this study was to improve understanding of (1) the effect of genotypic and environmental factors on pre-anthesis development and leaf appearance traits of barley and wheat; (2) the relationship of these factors with grain yield, and (3) the differences between these two crops across different environments/sowing dates. Therefore, trials with six two-row winter barley and six winter wheat cultivars were carried out in two successive growing seasons on four sowing dates. Our study showed that the observed traits varied between species, cultivars and sowing dates. In both growing seasons, biomass at anthesis and grain yield declined almost linearly by delaying the sowing date. There was no clear advantage in grain yield of wheat over barley under conditions of later sowing dates. Generally, barley produced more leaf and had shorter phyllochron than wheat. Both wheat and barley showed a similar relationship between grain yield and different pre-anthesis traits.