Location: Small Grains and Potato Germplasm Research
Project Number: 2050-21000-038-011-S
Project Type: Non-Assistance Cooperative Agreement
Start Date: Sep 1, 2022
End Date: Aug 31, 2025
Objective:
Winter hardiness is the major trait determining whether the variety is widely accepted in the production. This study aims to characterize the vascular number, size, distribution, as well as stomata cell size in leaf tissues to seek possible correlation to the barley winter hardiness. The positive results from this study would lead to the molecular marker development for selection of the better winter hardiness lines in the breeding program. It will greatly help the researchers in understanding the genetic and molecular mechanisms of the important agronomic trait.
Approach:
ARS barley breeding program has identified some strong winter hardiness barley lines and weak winter hardiness lines from the collaboration experiment of evaluating the imported barley germplasm lines from the Vavilov center. Ten lines of each strong and weak winter hardiness type were selected. Those selected lines are going to be planted out in field, tissues of the first leaf are collected from each line. Microscopy will be conducted on the samples to collect data of vascular number, size, distribution patterns, and stomata cell size. The experiments will be repeated in 3 plants of each line. Correlation will be analyzed between the vascular data and phenotypic data of winter hardiness and lodging resistance.
