Annual Progress Report on Malting Barley Research March, 2002

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DEVELOPING IMPROVED MALTING BARLEY VARIETIES FOR MONTANA
Tom Blake
Department of Plant Science and Plant Pathology
Montana State University
Objectives
Barley is an important component of the Montana economy with barley sales accounting
for almost $80 million annually. With 1.1 million acres of barley seeded in 2001,
Montana ranked second in US barley production. Over the past three years, malting
varieties have accounted for 58% of the barley seeded in the state with Harrington as the
predominant malt variety. While Harrington has the market edge in Montana, we are
attempting to produce new lines which have a more stable agronomic performance yet
maintain and potentially improve malting quality. By utilizing high malting quality and
strong agronomically performing lines in our breeding program, we now have
experimental lines which can surpass Harrington for agronomic performance and may
challenge Harrington for malting quality. The major objective of our project was to
improve the agronomic performance and stability of our 2-rowed malting barley
germplasm base in Montana. We feel great advancements have been made toward this
objective through the use of improved parental materials and a strong breeding and
selection program as evidenced in this report.
Methodology
The Montana State University barley improvement program utilizes a rapid advancement
(3 generations/year) single seed descent approach to inbred line derivation. In addition to
our traditional breeding program, we have incorporated molecular genetic approaches
into our germplasm selection and improvement. Molecular mapping of Karl x Lewis
recombinant inbred lines has revealed QTL which are currenlty being used in the
development of stable, low grain protein lines.
The barley breeding program at Montana State is a collaborative effort with the Montana
Agricultural Research Centers. We have seven major research locations distributed
across Montana which are a major assett to our breeding program. From Huntley and
Sidney stations in the east to Moccasin and Havre in central Montana, Conrad and
Kalispell in the west, and Bozeman in south central, we can evaluate our lines under a
diverse range of environmental conditions in a given year. These seven research stations
allow observation under six dryland conditions and five irrigated conditions.
We make approximately 100 new crosses each year. During a 2 year process we advance
between 100 and 200 recombinant inbred lines per initial cross to the F5 generation, and
evaluate about 15,000 F5 headrows each spring. From these F5 headrows approximately
3000 plants are selected for seeding the following year in normal seeding density 2-row
plots. These 3000 plots are evaluated for agronomic desirability, and approximately 600
are hand-harvested. Grain from these F6 lines is evaluated for yield, protein content, and
test weight. Based on these paramters, the most promising 250 are advanced to our
Preliminary Yield Trial (PYT) conducted at two locations (Bozeman-irrigated and