Morphological Characteristics of Two-rowed Barley (Hordeum sativum ssp. distichum L.) Landraces Originating from Herzegovina

Abstract

Barley is a small grain cereal, tolerant to high temperatures and drought. Due to this characteristic, it can be regarded as a promising crop for production in dry conditions. Research on five spring landraces of two-rowed barley lasted two experimental years (2011 and 2012) in agro-ecological conditions of Banja Luka. In the experiment, the standard cropping practices were applied, without irrigation. The experiment was set as a complete randomized design with four replications. All measurements were performed in 10 plants per replication. Morphological characteristics included plant height (cm), spike length (cm), grain number per spike and grain weight per spike (g). Obtained data were subjected to two-way analysis of variance with landrace and growing season as main factors. Significant treatment or interaction effects were further analysed by Fisher's least significant difference (LSD) test, often utilized for pairwise comparisons among arithmetic means. In all tested traits the maximum average values were obtained in barley landrace AM2, i.e. the plant height (86.89 cm), the spike length (8.90 cm), the grain number per spike (24.74) and the grain weight per spike (1.17 g). Due to these facts, two-rowed barley landrace AM2 can be marked as the most productive in this research, bearing a potential for different crop breeding practices.