Genetic diversity in barley landraces (Hordeum vulgare L. subsp.vulgare) originated from Crescent Fertile region as detected by seed storage proteins

Importance of Landraces in Cereal Breeding for Stress Tolerance

The renewed focus on cereal landraces is a response to some negative consequences of modern agriculture and conventional breeding which led to a reduction of genetic diversity. Cereal landraces are still cultivated on marginal lands due to their adaptability to unfavourable conditions, constituting an important source of genetic diversity usable in modern plant breeding to improve the adaptation to abiotic or biotic stresses, yield performance and quality traits in limiting environments. Traditional agricultural production systems have played an important role in the evolution and conservation of wide variability in gene pools within species. Today, on-farm and ex situ conservation in gene bank collections, together with data sharing among researchers and breeders, will greatly benefit cereal improvement. Many efforts are usually made to collect, organize and phenotypically and genotypically analyse cereal landrace collections, which also utilize genomic approaches. Their use in breeding programs based on genomic selection, and the discovery of beneficial untapped QTL/genes/alleles which could be introgressed into modern varieties by MAS, pyramiding or biotechnological tools, increase the potential for their better deployment and exploitation in breeding for a more sustainable agricultural production, particularly enhancing adaptation and productivity in stress-prone environments to cope with current climate changes.

Assessment of phenotypic and storage protein diversity in exotic barley cultivated in District Dir (Pakistan)

A total of 198 exotic barley genotypes were collected from the Gene Bank of the Plant Genetic Resource Institute (PGRI), National Agriculture Research Center (NARC), Islamabad, Pakistan, for the assessment of genetic diversity based on morphological and seed storage proteins. Qualitative and quantitative traits were noted as per IPGRI, 1994 descriptor. Among the quantitative parameters, a high level of genetic variability index was noted in seeds per spike at 79.9% of coefficient of variance followed by biomass per plant which shows 37.4% variance, while minimum variance in quantitative traits was noted in days to germination at 5.4% followed by days to maturity at 3.1% with average mean genetic variation in all quantitative traits at 97.6%. Assay of total seed protein in these exotic accessions was analogue through polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis. A high level of variation was noted in loci (bands) B26 (0.98%) followed by B25 (0.89%), B24 (0.78%),B23 (0.69%) and B01 (0.52%). A similarly low level of variation was detected in B03 (0.16%) followed by B06 (0.18%), B13 (0.19%), B12 (0.21%), B11 (0.23%), B05 (0.24%), B07 (0.25%), B21 (0.34%), B20 (0.35%), B17 (0.39%). The results indicate that the mean value of variation in these accessions is 97.6%. Further assessments and exploration were suggested for these genotypes in multi-climatic zones to satisfy farmers’ need, breeders’ interest and malt-industrial requirements.