Comparative study of diverse indigenous and exotic barley (Hordeum vulgare L.) genotypes for terminal heat tolerance

Abstract

Barley is one of the most valuable cereal crop and belongs to Poaceae family. Among the abiotic stress, heat stress (terminal high temperature) is one of the major causes of lowering productivity of barley crops. Therefore, the present investigation comprising a set of 101 barley genotypes was evaluated at Agriculture Research farm, Banaras Hindu University, during Rabi of 2016-17 with aim to finding the terminal heat tolerance with better yielding genotypes. Experiment was conducted at in two date of sowing viz., early sowing was on 22nd November 2016 and late sowing was on 18 December 2016respectively. In early sown condition at the time of grain filling stage, temperature was 20-22 0C while under late sown condition it was 28-35 oC. Analysis of variance for 101 genotypes studied in early condition and late condition, it revealed significant differences for all the thirteen and fourteen characters respectively. In the early condition genotype 11th HBSN-175 had highest yield per plant while highest grain per ear recorded on MOROC-9-75 and 1000 grain weight was highest for INBON-05-50. The terminal heat stress varieties as 12th HBSN-7(7.58 g) had highest grain yield per plant and BH-976(49.76) recorded in 1000 grain weightPL-751(29.66) recorded highest for grains per ear. Genotypes having ideal maturity, satisfactory yield under higher temperature could be used under breeding program for crop improvement.