Production

Barley is an important agricultural commodity in Washington State with a usual value rank of 8th to 12th among the 40 commodities produced and tallied. Barley is the third most important field crop preceeding wheat and hay. Washington ranked 5th among states in barley production in 1995 with approximately 21 million bushels produced from 300,000 acres. The average statewide yield in 1995 was 72 bu/a. Steptoe was replaced in 1995 as the dominant cultivar for the first time in nearly 20 years. It was planted on 23% of the barley acres. Baronesse was planted on 34% of the barley acreage with malting types on about 12% and winter types on less than 5% of the acres.

Breeding Program Highlights

New Varieties

Crest, released in 1992, is the newest WSU 2-row spring cultivar. The first certified seed was produced in 1994 and has been designated a recommended cultivar by the American Malting Barley Association. It has both very good malting and feed quality, wide adaption, high yield, and high test weight and kernel plumpness. It has medium plant height and average lodging resistance.

WA11045-87 was released in 1996 as Washington State University's first hulless barley cutlivar. It is a 2-row spring type with "normal" endosperm. It has outyielded Condor, the most-grown hulless cultivar in Washington, by 5-13% precent over eastern Washington locations. Additionally, WA11045-87 has outperformed Condor in nutritional quality evaluations. WA11045-87 is expected to be used for feed, food and export. Foundation seed will be produced in 1996.

WA7999-88, a 6-row spring-hooded type, was released in 1996 as Washington State University's first hay barley cultivar. WA7999-88 has outyielded Belford, the most-grown hay cultivar in the Pacific Northwest, for forage by 15% (dry weight basis) and for seed by 22%. WA7999-88 has much improved lodging resistance compared with Belford. Nutritional value is about the same as that of Belford. WA7999-88 is expected to supplant Belford, which was released about 1950. Foundation seed of WA7999-88 will be produced in 1996.

On-Farm Cultivar Tests

A spring barley on-farm cultivar test system has been in place since 1990 in eastern Washington. It has operated under a decentralized system since 1992 involving WSU, the Washington Barley Commission, the Washington State Crop Improvement Association, Great Western Malting Company, and county coordinators. Ten counties and 26-42 growers have been involved each year. Growers conduct the tests on their farms with their own equipment. Plots are drill strips (>combine header width) up to 2500 ft. in length. There is usually a single replication of four to ten varieties per location. Farms are replications for analysis purposes. Yield and grain quality parameters (test weights, plump/thin, and protein percentages) are measured. The project has extension as well as research value. Results of the on-farm tests have been complimentary to those of the conventional small plot trials. Yield ranks among varieties have not differed between the two test systems. In the future, tests will be conducted within counties independently or by Great Western Malting Company in selected environments with malting varieties.

North American Barley Genome Mapping Project

The WSU breeding program has been contributing directly by evaluating the doubled haploid mapping populations in the field and lab. In 1995, the Harrington/Morex population was grown. In addition to agronomic and yield component trait data, feed and malting quality as well as dormancy trait data have been collected. Mapping of these traits are in progress via Quantitative Trait Loci (QTL) analyses. QTL validation and molecular marker assisted selection for dormancy, beta-glucan, beta-glucanase malt extract and amylase activity and fine mapping of malt extract and amylase activity studies are under way. Considerable collaboration with scientists throughout North America and beyond has occurred.

Proanthocyanidin-free Barley

Proanthocyanidin-free barley lines are being developed to eliminate the chill haze problems in beer and possibly enhance the nutritional value of barley grain. Sodium azide mutagenesis has provided new proanthocyanidin-free mutants both of anthocyanin pigmented and non-pigmented types. The pigmented (PANT) mutants appear to hold more promise than the non-pigmented ANT mutants. Mutants are evaluated for agrono-mic and quality traits, as well as used in crosses for improved breeding line development. This project is in cooperation with the Carlsberg Laboratory at Copenhagen.

Pest Resistance

Increased efforts are underway to breed for resistance to relatively new or potential pest problems in the Pacific Northwest. The priority order of efforts is barley stripe rust (collaborating with D. Wesenberg, W. Brown, and R. Line), Russian wheat aphid (collaborating with D. Mornhinweg), soilborne root diseases (collaborating with R.J. Cook), Hessian fly, and barley yellow dwarf virus. A major new study involves evaluation of barley germplasm for soilborne root pathogen reaction, especially to Rhizoctonia root rot. The USDA-ARS preliminary barley core collection has been screened with the first identification of resistant genotypes in barley.
 
 

Program Contributors

Other contributors to the WSU Barley Improvement Program and/or work reported herein include: A. Kleinhofs, B. C. Miller, J. A. Froseth, R.J. Cook, R. Line, Scientists; I. Romagosa, Visiting Scientist; C. E. Muir (retired 12/31/95), J. A. Clancy, J. S. Cochran, P. E. Reisenauer, Research Technologists; F. Han, V. Jitkov, Graduate Students.

Recent Publications

Johnson, J.J., B.C. Miller, J.R. Alldredge, and S.E. Ullrich. 1994. Using single replicate

on-farm tests to enhance cultivar performance evaluation. J. Prod. Agric. 7:75-80.

Johnson, J.J., S.E. Ullrich, J.R. Alldredge, and B.C. Miller. 1994. Probability as a basis for barley

cultivar selection by growers. J. Prod. Agric. 7:225-229.

Hou, L., S.E. Ullrich,A. Kleinhofs. 1994. Inheritance of anther culture traits of barley. Crop Science. 34:1243-1247.

verland, M., K.B. Heintzman, C.W. Newman, R.K. Newman, and S.E. Ullrich. 1994.

Chemical composition and physical characteristics of proanthocyanidin-free and normal barley isotypes. J. Cereal Science 20:85-91.

Miller, M.C., J.A. Froseth, C.L.Wyatt, andS.E. Ullrich. 1994. Effects of starch type, total beta-

glucan and ADF levels on the energy content of barley for poultry and swine. Can. J. Animal Sci. 74:679-686.

Oberthur, L., T.K. Blake, W.E. Dyer, and S.E. Ullrich. 1995. Genetic analysis of seed dormancy

in barley (Hordeum vulgare L.). J. Quant. Trait Loci (on line), available; World Wide Web:http: //probe.nalusda.gov:8000/other docs/jqtl/jqtl 1995-05/ dormancy.html.

Han, F., S.E. Ullrich, S. Chirat, S. Menteur, L. Jestin, A. Sarrafi, P.M. Hayes, B.L. Jones, T.K.

Blake, D.M. Wesenberg, A. Kleinhofs, and A. Kilian. 1995. Mapping of beta-glucan content and beta-glucanase activity loci in barley grain and malt. Theor. Appl. Genet. 91:921-927.

Ullrich, S.E., D.M. Wesenberg, H.E. Bockelman, and J.D. Franckowiak. 1995. International

cooperation in barley germplasm activities. p. 165-176. In R.R. Duncan (ed.). International germplasm transfer: past and present. CSSA Special Publ. No. 23. CSSA and ASA, Madison, Wisc.