Combining ability and heterosis in forage barley

Abstract

High yield with quality is always the most important aim for forage barley breeding. From about 1000 accessions of barley resources, some high yielding and quality barley genotyeps with good synthetic characters, including Supi No. 1 and Pin 8 from Jaingsu province of China, and Clipper from Australia, were selected. These have been examined and approved as spreading varieties in our province, and the genetic studies have been made on their grain, nodal and leaf characters [1-2]. High yield varieties Tequila, 8640 and Mytl 44 of forage barley have also been approved as spreading ones. In order to transfer the beneficial genes of high yield and protein into the spreading varieties and to select new genotypes suitable to Yunnan plateau, we analysed the combining ability from a 10-parent diallel cross to provide useful materials and reference for forage barley breeding and heterosis breeding.