Genetic Diversity of Genetic Resources of Winter Barley Maintained in the Genebank in Slovakia

Abstract

A set of 140 winter barley genetic resources of foreign and domestic origins was tested on experimental basis of RIPP in 1997–1999 to characterise the variability of the accessions based on agronomic data using multivariate methods. In the set tested, variability was studied of selected traits and characteristics such as: plant height (PH), weight of 1000 grains (W), grain number per a spike (SNG), grain uniformity – ratio of front seeds over 2.5  m sieve (GU), vegetation period – sowing/full maturity (VM) and seed yield (Y). Agronomic characters show great variability between cultivars. The study of matrix interrelationships between different variables showed that the yield is greatly correlated with traits:  vegetation period – sowing/full maturity, grain uniformity and grain number per a spike. High positive correlation was obtained between the grain uniformity and the weight of 1000 grains. Negative correlation was found between the grain number per a spike and weight of 1000 grains in six-row barley. Correlations between agronomic traits differed between two- and six-row barley sets. The study revealed the existence of genetic differences among accessions as well as differences between two- and six-row winter barley and between the genotypes of domestic and foreign country origin, respectively. Results of this study provided information about diversity which should be of particular interest for the further collecting of genetic resources.