Biotech Studies 1998, Vol 7, Num, 2     (Pages: 018-024)

ADAPTATION OF BARLEY VARIETIES TO DRYLAND ENVIRONMENT OF CENTRAL ANATOLIA

Muzaffer AVCI ,Taner AKAR

1 Central Research Institute for Field Crops (CRIFC), P.O. Box 226 06 042 Ulus-Ankara-TURKEY - Temporal and spatial fluctuations in climate and significant differences among locations used in regional yield trials and the management practices applied by farmers are the main obstacles of plant breeders when they try to overcome the substantial yield reduction during the production process. These drawbacks are especially more pronounced under rainfed conditions.

The objective of the study was to evaluate the performance of barley varieties for stability and adaptability. So seven two- rowed winter facultative barley varieties were tested in eight locations in Central Anatolia for three various (favorable, unfavorable and average ) growing seasons.

The results indicated that Tarm-92 and Efes-3 cultivars were the most adaptive for the locations with average yield of more than 3.5 t/ha and under 3 t/ha, respectively. Hamidiye and Obruk-86 seemed slightly better than the average response in case of more than 4 t/ha seasonal yield. Considering locations and seasons combined Tarm-92 was outstanding.

It can be concluded that relatively small genotype by environment (GE) interaction, in spite of being statistically significant, implies that all varieties were well suited to the environments Keywords : Barley;dryland environment; adaptation; yield