Assessment of the genetic diversity of spring barley samples from North American origin

Margarita Gocheva

Abstract: The aim of the present investigations was by using hierarchical cluster and principal component (PC) analyses to determine the genetic distance of some traits associated with productivity in 12 of spring barley varieties from North American origin. To determine the genetic distance between them, the traits are tracked: number of productive tillers per m2, number of fertile tillers per plant, plant height, spike length, grain number per a spike, sterile spikelet number per a spike, grain weight per a spike, grain weight per a plant, 1000 grains weight. Cluster analysis based on the agronomical qualities of the varieties confirmed the genetic diversity between the samples. The results show that the varieties were divided into two clusters. Genetically outermost are Ellice and Micmac from a first cluster with Ershabet, Erbet and Lewis from a second cluster. They could achieve a good recombination between the value of grain length, grain number per a spike and grain weight per a spike of the varieties from first cluster with better productivity tillers, the smaller number of sterile grains, and the high 1000 grains weight of the second cluster samples.

Keywords: genetic diversity; hierarchical cluster analyses; principal component (PC) analyses; spring barley

Date published: 2020-06-30