Variation of Agro-morphological Characters in Moroccan Barley Landraces Under Near Optimal and Drought Conditions

Abstract

In many areas of North Africa, barley is often the only possible rainfed crop. In these regions water deficit is the primary constraint affecting crop production. Twenty barley landraces collected from different localities in south Morocco and four modern varieties were characterized in two field experiments, one under wellirrigated and one under limited-irrigated conditions. Nine agro-morphological characters were evaluated: Plant height, tiller number per plant, number of grains per spike, number of spikes per plant, spike weight, spike length, plant weight (PW), number of internodes of rachis (NIR), and length of the last internode of rachis. The correlation coefficients among characters were nearly the same in the well-and limited-irrigated experiment. Under limited-irrigated conditions, plant growth was significantly decreased as measured by all characters except NIR, which was unaffected. The percentage of reduction, ranging from 80.08% to 5.82%, was recorded on PW and NIR, respectively. The injury index ranging from 4.02 to 0.06 was recorded on PW and NIR, respectively. Using discriminant analysis the genotypes were arranged in three, clearly separated groups that varied in their tolerance to drought stress.

Genetic Diversity Study of Egyptian Barley Cultivars using Sequence-Related Amplified Polymorphism (SRAP) Analysis for Water Stress Tolerance

“…The reduction of DH in normal and water deficit conditions was 4% in the first season and 3.3% in the second season, and the stress reduced all cultivars for HD indicting that the earlier heading in barley is the better adapted to low reainfed areas, whereas the earliness probably is the most efficient drought escape mechanism. These results were consistent with those of El-Seidy (1997), Shakhareh et al (2001), El-Madidi et al (2005 and Abu-El-Lail et al (2016). The stress intensity (SI) was equal to 3.99% in the first season and 3.38% in the second season indicating that DH trait proficient a minor water stress in the study.…”

Drought stress effects on photosystem I content and photosystem II thermotolerance analyzed using Chl a fluorescence kinetics in barley varieties differing in their drought tolerance

“…In the case of Aït Baha there was no effect, whereas Lannaceur showed a decreased contribution of the I‐P phase to the variable fluorescence following drought stress. El Madidi et al (2005) studied the drought tolerance of a set of Moroccan barley varieties using agronomical parameters. Oukarroum et al (2007) showed that a ranking according to the work of El Madidi et al (2005) correlated closely with a ranking based on a fluorescence parameter: the DFI.…”

“…El Madidi et al (2005) studied the drought tolerance of a set of Moroccan barley varieties using agronomical parameters. Oukarroum et al (2007) showed that a ranking according to the work of El Madidi et al (2005) correlated closely with a ranking based on a fluorescence parameter: the DFI. Here, the fluorescence transients used in the study of Oukarroum et al (2007) were reanalyzed and the ΔV IP values of control and drought‐stressed plants of each variety were calculated and are presented in Fig.…”

“…The barley plants–grown in a wide geographic range under varied agro‐climatic conditions–are subjected to various environmental stresses such as drought stress during all or part of their growth and development. This study centers on two varieties of barley plants originating from Morocco, differing in their drought tolerance: Aït Baha, a variety tolerant to drought stress, and Lannaceur, a sensitive variety (El Madidi et al 2005, Oukarroum et al 2007). In this work, drought stress effects on the I‐P phase of the OJIP fluorescence were studied and a new approach to test the tolerance of plants to heat stress is proposed.…”

Performance of Sesame Seeds Produced from Plants Subjected to Water Stress for Early Selection of Tolerant Genotypes

“…In fact, drought is a serious problem for crop production in arid and semi-arid areas of the world. Despite having an optimal range of between 500 and 650 mm of water during its production cycle [3], intra-seasonal drought episodes due to climate change are strongly linked to the yield loss of sesame crops in the Sudano-Sahelian zone [4,5,6], particularly when they reach critical stages during their growth and development cycle [1,7]. Indeed, not all stages of development have the same vulnerability; and the resulting consequence on vegetative growth, flowering, and maturity and consequently on the physiological quality of harvested seeds differ [6,8,9].…”