Barley

Researchers from ICARDA and Oregon State University (OSU) have together succeeded in producing barley germplasm that is resistant to stripe rust—a disease that has already done enormous damage to barley crops in South America, and which is moving into North America. ICARDA’s Latin America Regional Program, in collaboration with CIMMYT, has developed elite barley germplasm that is resistant to several such biotic stresses.
     At OSU, researchers have developed what are called double-haploid mapping populations—populations of homozygous plants which maintain their characteristics in every generation—a technique that permits much faster production of fixed breeding lines. Working in collaboration, scientists at OSU cross resistant germplasm from ICARDA with genotypes adapted to the Pacific Northwest of the USA. The ICARDA team then conducts extensive tests for disease reaction in central Mexico, while the OSU group does molecular-marker analysis to map the genes and find the sources of resistance.
     What this means is that plant breeders will be one step ahead of pests and diseases. The benefits of this for farmers should be important in the USA, but in the developing world it is absolutely crucial. There are real implications for food security.
     Kansas State University (KSU) also has a non-formal collaborative relationship with ICARDA’s research program in barley improvement, both in WANA and Latin America.
     OSU, KSU and Texas A&M are involved in informal collaboration with ICARDA’s research program in winter and facultative wheat and barley. OSU coordinates the North America Barley Genome Mapping Project, which includes work at ICARDA to construct a molecular map of barley.
     ICARDA also has a project on Adaptation of barley to drought and temperature stress using molecular markers in collaboration with the Plant Molecular Genetics Laboratory at Texas Tech University. This aims to develop a basic understanding of adaptation to drought and/or temperature stress using barley as a model crop; clarify the physiological and genetic relationship between adaptation to stress conditions and yield potential under optimal conditions; and improve the efficiency and effectiveness of plant breeding for stress environments. Barley lines from this project are being field tested, and molecular markers linked to useful traits have been identified.
     ICARDA is cooperating with Colorado State University on testing for stripe rust in barley, and with North Dakota University for head scab of barley. Material from the ICARDA/CIMMYT barley breeding program in Mexico has also been used successfully by the University of California, Davis, which targets the Central Valley of California in its breeding program. This material has been used to produce new disease-resistant and high-yielding lines of both six-row and two-row barley types that are now under field evaluation.

Scientists from Oregon State University assess new ICARDA/CIMMYT barley lines in Mexico for their resistance to barley stripe rust which has reached the US.

Barley breeder Dr Lynn W. Gallagher, of the University of California, Davis, uses ICARDA/CIMMYT germplasm to produce disease-resistant and high-yielding barley lines for the US.