Inheritance of seminal root, peduncle length and other agronomical characteristics in H. vulgare X H. spontaneum crosses

Five parents of barley namely: WJ2291, Tadmor, Arar, Hordeum spontaneum 41-4 and Hordeum spontaneum 41-5 and six F2 populations derived from crossing them were evaluated in Tel-Hadya, ICARDA, Syria. Characteristics were recorded for each individual plant of F2 populations and the five parents: days of heading; plant height; peduncle length; peduncle extrusion, and spike length. All the above were measured characteristics, whereas rachis brittleness, awn roughness, row type and seed colour were scored ones. The selection took place among the non brittle F2 plants. Besides the characteristics recorded for parents and F2 populations, the following characteristics were recorded for the F3 families: biological yield, seed weight, number of heads per plots, rain yield per plant, seed size (seed length, seed width, and seed thickness), stem diameter at 5-10 cm heights and seminal root measurements (number of seminal roots, seminal root length and seminal root diameter). The analysis of data collected showed that the improvement of the agronomic characteristics of the Hordeum vulgare parent was valid, as this was attributed to the fact that Hordeum vulgare or spontaneum are distinct parents. The F3 families were devided into three groups: 1."The promising" F3 families were those which combined all the measured characteristics better than their Hordeum vulgare parent. 2."The less promising" F3 families were lacking only grain yield per plant characteristics compared with their Hordeum vulgare parent, and 3."The even less promising" F3 families were lacking grain yield per plant and number of heads per plot, compared with their Hordeum vulgare parent. The segregation in rachis brittleness, row type and awn roughness, and seed colour characteristics did not fit the Mendelian segregation rations, 3 : 1 and 12 : 3 : 1 which indicated that the one gene does not control the 3 : 1 cases, nor two genes control the latter