ENDOSPERM VITREOUSNESS AND PROTEIN CONTENT IN GRAIN OF CHAFFY AND NAKED BARLEY CULTIVARS

High endosperm vitreousness and protein content in grain are producers’ requirements for food barley. In 2014-2017, the Plant Production Institute named after V.Ya. Yuriev of NAAS (Kharkiv, Ukraine) investigated the relationship between vitreousness and protein content in grain of spring barley cultivars. Forty-eight cultivars of different origin, varieties and directions of use were taken as the test material. It was established that the protein content and grain vitreousness depended on the genotype and weather conditions during the critical “earing- filling” and “filling-ripening” phases. Precipitation in the “earing-filling” phase had a significantly positive effect on the protein content in all the cultivars, but a negative effect on the vitreousness, especially in naked cultivars (r = -0.846). There was a significant negative correlation between the effective temperature sum during the “earing-filling” phase and the protein content. There was a significant positive correlation the effective temperature sum during the “earing-filling” phase and the vitreousness only in naked cultivars (r = 0.803). A rise in temperature during the “filling-ripening” phase considerably increased the endosperm vitreousness. As to the precipitation amount, only a negative trend was noticed for the vitreousness. Both the protein content and vitreousness significantly differed depending on the genotype. The naked groat cultivars significantly exceeded ones by the both parameters. No differences were observed between the grain and brewing cultivars. No dependence of the vitreousness on the protein content was revealed within the grain, brewing and naked groat groups in most cases, however, analyzing all the cultivars together for such dependence, a significant correlation was established. This is attributed to including high-protein, high-vitreous naked cultivars in the analysis, therefore, it is necessary to carefully select the test material for such studies in order to obtain a correct picture of relationships between the traits.