Efficiency of breeding methods for Kharkiv spring barley cultivars

Abstract

Aim. To evaluate the effectiveness of breeding methods used in the development of Kharkiv spring barley cultivars in order to determine their feasibility and results rating. Materials and Methods. Fifty spring barley cultivars bred in Kharkiv by various methods over 112 years (1910−2021) were studied. The feasibility and effectiveness of methods of analytical (individual selection), combinational (hybridization), and mutational (chemical and radiation mutagenesis) spring barley breeding as well as of their combinations at different stages of the breeding development were evaluated by the number of cultivars registered for production. Results and Discussion. It was established that the analytical spring barley breeding via individual selection from heterogeneous local accessions worked poorly: within 24 years (1910−1933), only three cultivars were registered (on average, one cultivar per 8.12 years); within the following 37 years (1934−1970), two cultivars selected from accessions of the world collection were registered (one cultivar per 18.5 years); and within 61 years of intensive selections in total (1910−1970), only five cultivars were registered (on average, one cultivar per 12.2 years). The breeding via hybridization of accessions with similar characteristics was unsuccessful for a long time (47 years; 1924-1970). Combinational breeding via hybridization became the most effective method in terms of the number of registered cultivars (39 cultivars within 51 years; (1971-2021); on average one cultivar per 1.39 years) after starting materials with contrasting characteristics were involved in crossing. The mutational breeding via chemical and radiation mutagenesis methods was also effective: five mutant cultivars were registered within 15 years (1988−2002) (on average, one cultivar per three years). Conclusions. The efficiency of breeding in terms of the number of registered Kharkiv spring barley cultivars was evaluated: the combinational breeding via crossing genotypes with contrasting characteristics showed the highest efficiency; the mutational breeding via chemical and radiation mutageneses to create genotypes with new characteristics was also highly efficient; and the analytical breeding via individual selections of available genotypes from heterogeneous populations of local and collection, accessions was hardly efficient: on average, one cultivar was registered within 1.39, 3.00 and 12.20 years, respectively, that is, there was an 8.78- and 4.07-fold increase in the efficiency with combinational and mutational breeding, respectively.