Evaluation of Spring Barley Varieties for Post-Anthesis Drought Tolerance

Emanuela Filip¹, Camelia Urdă¹, Florin Russu¹, Felicia Chețan¹,
Alina Șimon¹, Ioana Crișan¹, Marius Aipătioaie ^1,2

¹Agricultural Research and Development Station Turda
²University of Agricultural Sciences and Veterinary Medicine, Cluj-Napoca

Keywords: spring barley, heat stress, chemical desiccation, assimilate remobilization, breeding.

Abstract: Heat stress is one of the most severe abiotic factors limiting cereal productivity and requires intensified breeding efforts. Although high temperatures may occur during different phenophases, their incidence in the post-anthesis period causes significant yield losses by disrupting grain formation and filling processes. Even though the experiment was conducted in a favorable barley-growing area, local meteorological data indicate a consistent increase in post-anthesis temperatures over the past three decades. Consequently, barley is increasingly affected by the negative effects of this stress factor.
In this context, assessing heat tolerance and cultivar performance in relation to current climatic trends becomes essential. In the present study, chemical desiccation was employed to simulate the effects of heat stress and inhibit photosynthesis, aiming to evaluate the capacity of spring barley varieties to remobilize assimilates from vegetative organs to the grain as a compensatory mechanism. The research was conducted over three years at the Agricultural Research and Development Station Turda and included ten spring barley varieties evaluated under both simulated stress and natural field conditions. The analyzed traits focused on the main yield components: number of grains per spike, grain weight per spike, and thousand-grain weight (TGW).
Application of chemical desiccation proved effective in differentiating genotypes based on their adaptive responses, facilitating the identification of cultivars with enhanced heat tolerance. Identifying high-performing parents can steer breeding programs in more focused directions and accelerate the introduction of heat-tolerant varieties into the crop.

Acknowledgement: This research was funded by the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development, Project ADER no. 123/17.07/2023: Conservation of soil resources was achieved through the use of technological components of regenerative agriculture in order to obtain economic and sustainable harvests of straw cereals in the Transylvanian Plateau.