Full Length Research Paper

Genetic analysis of grain yield and some agronomic traits in hulless barley

R. Eshghi* and E. Akhundova

Faculty of Biology, Department of Genetics and Darwinism, Baku State University Azerbaijan.

*Corresponding author. E-mail: rohameshghi@yahoo.com. Tel: +99450-7164-789.

Accepted 2 October, 2009

   Abstract

The choice of an efficient breeding procedure depends to a large extent on the knowledge of the genetic system controlling the character to be selected. An eight-parent diallel, involving hulless barley varieties ICNBF-582, ICB-102607, ICNBF93-328, SB91925, ICNBF8-613, BBSC congana, Petuina2 and ICNBF93-369, was evaluated to determine the genetic parameters contributing to plant height, days to maturity, number of tillers, number of grains per spike and grain yield per plant. Furthermore, generation mean and variance analysis was carried out on six generations (P_1, P_2, F_1, F_2, BC₁ and BC₂) derived from the cross ICNBF93-369ICNBF-582 and SB91925ICB-102607 to complement the genetic information obtained from the diallel analysis. Wr/Vr graph in diallel analysis and average degree of dominance together with narrow-sense heritability values in both experiments revalued additive gene effects for plant height, number of tillers and days to maturity and over-dominance gene action for number of grains per spike. Although in cross ICNBF93-369ICNBF-582 the dominance effects had a greater share, the additive effects in diallel analysis and cross SB91925ICB-102607 played major role in the inheritance of grain yield per plant, since narrow-sense heritability of this trait was low. It can therefore be concluded that direct improvement of this trait is somehow problematic because environmental factors contribute greatly in the control of the trait.

Key words: Hulless barley, diallel, generation mean analysis, gene effects, agronomic traits.