Genetic and Agro-morphological diversity in global barley (Hordeum vulgare L.) collection at ICARDA

Heat stress at later growth stage is one of the major limitations in achieving potential yield in barley. Incorporation of heat tolerance in the variety development process is an essential task that breeders would like to achieve by exploring new sources of genetic variability and their utilization. A better understanding of genetic variation in existing genotypes under heat stress is required to produce high yielding varieties with improved heat tolerance. An association mapping panel 2017 (AM2017), comprising of 316 genotypes, was evaluated under timely and late sown (heat stress) conditions for two consecutive crop seasons at Hisar in India during 2017–2019. Eight agro-morphological traits, mainly contributing to yield, were considered agro-morphological diversity study. Genetic diversity and population structure were explored by using the 50 K iSelect Illumina Barley SNP array. A set of 36,793 SNP markers, covering a genetic distance of 991.82 cM with an average marker density of 37.09 SNPs/cM, was obtained after quality filtration. The gene diversity (GD) and Polymorphic Information Content (PIC) at genome level was 0.362 and 0.289, respectively. In AM2017, two subpopulations were observed mainly due to the row types. Principal component analysis of agro-morphological traits revealed that days to heading and maturity along with spike length, spikelet number per spike and grain yield per plot were the most important traits in timely and late sown conditions. The information on agro-morphological genetic diversity under heat stress conditions will be useful in identifying heat tolerant genotypes for use in barley breeding programs.