Biotech Studies 1998, Vol 7, Num, 2     (Pages: 025-030)

BREEDING FOR BORON TOLERANCE AND ITS IMPACT ON YIELD COMPONENTS OF BARLEY VARIETIES

M. AVCI 1 ,T. AKAR 1 ,N. ZENCİRCİ 1 ,H.TOSUN 1 ,M. KALAYCI 2

1 Central Research Institute for Field Crops (CRlFC). P.D. Box 226 Ankara, Turkey
2 Anadolu Agricultural Research Institute (AARl), Eskişehir, Turkey
- Boron toxicity is considered a problem in the Central Anatolia as well as semiarid areas in the world. For this reason, barley (Hordeum vulgare) breeding material supplied from CRIFC and AARIs' barley breeding programs was tested for three years on inherently B toxic fields in order to find out genotype tolerance to toxicity.

There was a great variation within the material tested for boron toxicity and a number of entries was more tolerant than tolerant check variety, Anadolu-86. Seed yields, total biomass, and harvest indexes were reduced but 1000 kernel weight was not affected as the toxicity symptoms on plants intensified.

As a conclusion, current barley breeding material has possessed enough sources of tolerance to B toxicity problems because of negative selection against toxicity and use of Turkish barley landraces in the crossing program. Keywords : Boron toxicity; boron tolerance; barley; yield