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ARS Home » Pacific West Area » Aberdeen, Idaho » Small Grains and Potato Germplasm Research » Research » Publications at this Location » Publication #418691

Research Project: Enhancing Barley and Oat Productivity, Quality, and Stress Resistance

Location: Small Grains and Potato Germplasm Research

Title: Association mapping of drought stress response for yield and quality traits in barley

Author
item Sapkota, Suraj
item MNDOLWA, ENINKA - Oak Ridge Institute For Science And Education (ORISE)
item Hu, Gongshe
item Fiedler, Jason
item Nandety, Raja Sekhar
item Carlson, Craig
item Esvelt Klos, Kathy

Submitted to: Crop Science
Publication Type: Peer Reviewed Journal
Publication Acceptance Date: 11/15/2024
Publication Date: 12/15/2024
Citation: Sapkota, S., Mndolwa, E., Hu, G., Fiedler, J.D., Nandety, R., Carlson, C.H., Esvelt Klos, K.L. 2024. Association mapping of drought stress response for yield and quality traits in barley. Crop Science. 65:1. https://doi.org/10.1002/csc2.21431.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1002/csc2.21431

Interpretive Summary: Barley is one of the most widely grown small grain cereals worldwide and ranks fourth after rice, wheat, and maize in terms of crop production. The largest proportion of barley production worldwide (>70%) is used as animal feed, about 21% in malting, and less than 6% for human consumption. Barley production is influenced by numerous stresses, including drought, which can significantly reduce yield. Therefore, in an effort to identify drought tolerant barley lines and to dissect the underlying genetic factors, a set of 250 two-rowed spring type barley lines were evaluated under irrigated, water-stressed, and rainfed environments for ten different yield and quality related traits. The genetic regions influencing these traits and their estimated effects were investigated in this study using genome-wide association (a statistical method to detect the association between genes and traits). Fourteen distinct genetic regions that influenced barley yield and quality traits were found in this study, including two regions implicated in drought tolerance. The findings of this study will be useful to develop improved barley germplasm.

Technical Abstract: Barley (Hordeum vulgare L.) is a major cereal crop grown worldwide for human consumption, malting, and animal feed. Drought is one of the major abiotic stresses that reduces grain yield and quality in barley. This study was conducted to evaluate a set of 250 barley lines grown under irrigated, water-stressed, and rainfed conditions and to identify genomic regions associated with ten traits related to grain yield and quality across eight independent field environments. Variability was observed among barley lines for tolerance to water-stressed conditions in all tested environments. Genotype and environment both contributed to the phenotypic variation of the barley lines. Population structure analysis identified two subpopulations using 20,700 single-nucleotide polymorphic (SNP) markers. Genome-wide association mapping detected 74 significant SNPs (p = 6.5×10-6), representing 14 quantitative trait loci (QTL), on all barley chromosomes, except 3H. The QTL, QBG.ARS.7H, associated with beta-glucan (BG), was consistently detected across environments and explained 13.93% of phenotypic variation. Carriers of the minor allele for the BG associated SNP, JHI-Hv50k-2016-488035, exhibited up to 14.65% higher BG content, on average, compared with carriers of the common allele. This study advances our understanding of the genetics of barley response to water-stress conditions and suggests molecular markers for QTL which may be used in barley improvement.