New barley variety developed for Alaska

Submitted by Doreen Fitzgerald
Phone: (907) 474-5042
11/13/06

Fifteen years of plant breeding work has resulted in the 2006 release of a new barley variety, Wooding, by the Alaska Agricultural & Forestry Experiment Station at the University of Alaska Fairbanks.

The new six-rowed spring barley was developed by crossing a Finnish breeding barley (Jo1632) and Otal, which was developed by AFES in 1981. A breeding barley is used only for developing new varieties, not for producing crops. The purpose of developing the new variety was to improve upon the early maturity, feed quality, and grain and straw yields of Finaska, a variety developed by AFES and released in 2001. Barley, the most adaptable of all cereal grains, is a major food and animal feed crop worldwide.

Work began on Wooding barley in 1990, when the new cross was made. Progeny of the cross were grown in bulk from 1991 to 1998, at which time spikes, or ears of grain, were selected on the basis of early maturity and such characteristics as spike length and kernel size. In 1999, seed from these spikes was sown and 44 selections were made on the basis of early maturity, straw strength and uniformity. These were grown at Fairbanks in 2000 to increase seed.

In five years of testing at Fairbanks, Palmer and Delta Junction--from 2001 to 2005--Wooding produced higher yields and had greater test weights that Finaska barley grown during the same time period. Kernel size and shape are similar for the two varieties and they matured within one day of each other. Wooding plant height was 3.15 inches taller than Finaska, which represents a 12 percent increase in straw yield, but straw strength, or lodging resistance, was comparable. Lodging is the breakage of the stalk below the ear, which causes bent plants and grain loss during harvest.

In August 2006, the registration of Wooding barley was published in "Crop Science," the publication of the Crop Science Society of America. The variety’s development is attributed to research assistant Robert Van Veldhuizen and assistant professor Ming Mingchu Zhang at AFES. The name Wooding was chosen to recognize the agronomic contributions of the late Frank J. Wooding, professor emeritus of agronomy at UAF. Much of his work with grain is reported in AFES Bulletin 111, "Performance of Agronomic Varieties in Alaska, 1978-2002,"? which is available on the Internet at www.uaf.edu/snras/afes/pubs/bul/B111.pdf.

The Wooding barley research was funded by a Hatch grant (0193129), "Selection, variety testing, and evaluation of cultural practices for alternative agronomic crops in Alaska."?

CONTACT: Robert Van Veldhuizen at the UAF experiment station, (907) 474-5222 or by e-mail at fnrv@uaf.edu. Doreen Fitzgerald, information officer, School of Natural Resources and Agricultural Sciences, at (907) 474-5042 or by e-mail at fndlf2@uaf.edu.