Comparison of current Iranian and European barley cultivars for different agronomic and laboratory traits in temperate rainfed conditions

Barley has a special place in agriculture in terms of adaptation to different climatic conditions, valuable features in human nutrition, livestock and importance in the food industry.  The uses of external germplasm in breeding programs for direct use (after stability tests) or in producing hybrids are of high importance. For this purpose, 44 Iranian and European barley cultivars in a randomized complete block design with three replications at the experimental farm of Agricultural Faculty of Razi University, were evaluated under rainfed condition during the 2013-2014growing season. Important agronomic traits such as grain yield, biomass yield, number of spikes per m2, number of grains per spike, 1000-grain weight, and physiological traits including relative water content, membrane degradation or stability, SPAD, stomatal conductance and traits related to seed malt were determined. Analysis of variance showed significant difference among the cultivars for most of the traits at 1% probability level. Group comparisons showed unique characteristics of Iranian and European cultivars, so that Iranian cultivars had the highest values for hectolite weight, thousand kernels weight, spike density, grain length and grain length/ grain width, while the European cultivar had the highest potential for harvest index, number of spikes per square meter, spike length and awn length. Compared to European cultivar, the relative water content of leaves and degree of membrane damage and SPAD-reading in seedling stage were higher in Iranian cultivars. For the optimal use of these cultivars in plant breeding projects, parents can be selected at a reasonable distance based on desired traits.