Organic barley producers' desired qualities for crop improvement

Barley fits well into many different organic farming systems. It can be grown as either a winter or spring annual crop in many temperate regions. Barley can be used for food, malting, or animal feed, providing growers with diverse marketing opportunities. Despite its advantages, many organic farmers in the USA have not adopted barley as a regular crop in their rotation. Researchers surveyed organic barley producers to discover what they considered to be the main obstacles to growing barley. The primary obstacles identified were limited markets and price. Breeding and development of high-quality barley suitable for organic systems and specialty markets may be a way to expand markets and secure a better price. Farmers identified yield as the most important agronomic trait of interest, but other traits such as nutritional quality were also highly ranked. Naked (hull-less) barley bred for multi-use quality is a possible alternative that allows organic farmers to sell into multiple markets. Most respondents expressed interest in the development of such varieties suitable for organic farming conditions. The researchers conducted follow-up interviews to obtain detailed information on how barley is used in organic farming systems, production practices, costs of production, and what traits farmers would like to see breeders focus on

Improving Barley for Organic Producers: What Do Organic Producers Want?

Researchers surveyed organic barley producers in order to find out how many acres they are growing, what varieties they grow, what markets they are growing barley for, whether they receive a price premium for organic barley, whether they are growing or would be interested in growing multi-use naked barley, what production challenges they face, and what traits they would like to see improved

From germplasm development to variety release : the Oregon State University food barley experience

Barley (Hordeum vulgare L.) is one of the oldest known domesticated crops. Originally cultivated for human consumption, other end-uses have gained importance over the millennia. Barley is the fourth most important cereal crop in the world (FAO-STAT, 2011), and today it is mainly used as animal feed or malted for brewing and distilling, while wheat and rice have replaced it as a food product. But the food barley movement is being revived in many parts of the world (Baik and Ullrich, 2008; Bhatty 1999; Dickin et al., 2012; Grando and Gomez Macpherson, 2005), including the Pacific Northwest of the US. The Oregon State University Barley Project is currently developing novel food barley varieties with interesting colors, flavors, and nutritional qualities. Our most advanced food lines were grown in the OFOOD trial: a multi-location, multi-year trial consisting of 14 experimental lines grown under dryland, irrigated, and high rainfall conditions across the Pacific Northwest. This trial consisted of a mixture of hulled lines with waxy starch and hull-less lines with normal starch. The lines were evaluated for agronomic and food quality traits and resistance to biotic and abiotic stresses. One of the entries in the OFOOD trial is a non-waxy hull-less line called 'Streaker'. Streaker is a blend of three sister lines that has blue, white, and brown kernels, and will be released within the next year. This thesis follows food barley research at OSU from the original breeding scheme and definition of objectives, to variety trialing and quality characterization, and finally to germplasm release and product development

Developing Winter Food Barley for the Pacific Northwest of the US

Barley (Hordeum vulgare L.) has been cultivated for human consumption for thousands of years. However, most North Americans do not consume barley on a regular basis. In the last decade, there has been a renewed interest in barley production for human consumption. A number of quality traits estimate nutritional value and are useful for food processing. These include β-glucan, grain protein, kernel hardness, solvent retention capacity (SRC), and hull type. The Pacific Northwest (PNW) of the US is a high-yielding region that has a reputation for setting dietary and nutritional trends. However, there are currently no winter food barleys adapted to this area. To determine the potential suitability of winter growth habit for food barley production in the PNW, we developed and tested 14 advanced lines. The germplasm was developed via marker-assisted and phenotypic selection and included hulled lines with waxy starch and hull-less lines with normal starch. Agronomic and food quality traits were measured on samples from three representative environments (dryland, irrigated, and high rainfall) over a two-year period allowing for assessment of performance within and across locations, as well as genotype x environment interaction. Lines with waxy starch had significantly higher levels of β-glucan, harder kernels, and higher water retention capacity. Hull-less lines had, on average, slightly lower yields than hulled lines with the average difference of 105 kg ha⁻¹. Our future food barley variety development will focus exclusively on hull-less types, due to the simplified processing and consumer interest in the nutritional benefits of whole grain

The Oregon Promise Barley Population: A tool for understanding the genetic basis of traits fundamental for barley production, malting, brewing, and distilling

The simultaneous availability of unique germplasm resources and cost-effective high-throughput genotyping allows for accelerated genome exploration and gene discovery. Our germplasm -the Oregon Promise population- is an array of 200 barley doubled haploids developed from the cross of Full Pint x Golden Promise. The spring 2-row parents have contrasting alleles at two of the dwarfing genes deployed in current varieties. The four homozygous combinations of these plant height alleles lead to contrasting phenotypes and each allele has pleiotropic effects on a range of other traits. Golden Promise is an iconic variety for malting, brewing, and distilling; Full Pint is a contributor to the craft brew Renaissance. Accordingly, the Oregon Promise will provide a valuable resource for extending current knowledge of malting and brewing genes to the frontiers of sensory assessment. The population shows transgressive segregation for adult plant resistance to stripe rust. As this disease is likely to become increasingly prevalent as a consequence of climate change, expanding the catalog of genes conferring durable resistance to this pathogen is an essential defensive breeding step. The availability of a quick-turnaround and cost effective SNP genotyping service (400+ markers) at Eureka Genomics (developed in collaboration with the James Hutton Institute) allows accelerated linkage map construction, QTL detection, and unraveling of gene interactions and pleiotropic effects based on the multi-environment, multi-trait phenotyping of the Oregon Promise population. This project is possible thanks to the tools and knowledge generated by the USDA-NIFA T-CAP project.Peer Reviewe

Selection of transformation-efficient barley genotypes based on TFA (transformation amenability) haplotype and higher resolution mapping of the TFA loci

Barley (Hordeum vulgare) cv. ‘Golden Promise’ is one of the most useful and well-studied cultivars for genetic manipulation. In a previous report, we identified several transformation amenability (TFA) loci responsible for Agrobacterium-mediated transformation using the F2 generation of immature embryos, derived from ‘Haruna Nijo’ × ‘Golden Promise,’ as explants. In this report, we describe higher density mapping of these TFA regions with additional SNP markers using the same transgenic plants. To demonstrate the robustness of transformability alleles at the TFA loci, we genotyped 202 doubled haploid progeny from the cross ‘Golden Promise’ × ‘Full Pint.’ Based on SNP genotype, we selected lines having ‘Golden Promise’ alleles at TFA loci and used them for transformation. Of the successfully transformed lines, DH120366 came the closest to achieving a level of transformation efficiency comparable to ‘Golden Promise.’ The results validate that the genetic substitution of TFA alleles from ‘Golden Promise’ can facilitate the development of transformation-efficient lines from recalcitrant barley cultivars

Breeding Barley and Beans for Northwest Washington

In western Washington, small grains and legumes are valuable to growers as rotational crops that help break disease and pest cycles and rest the soil between the more intensive cash crops such as bulbs and tubers. Because of the high rainfall and fertile soils in western Washington, yields of crops such as barley (Hordeum vulgare L.) and dry beans (Phaseolis vulgaris L.) can be higher than under dryland conditions in the interior of the state. However, the price of these crops is set by volume under a commodity system driven by large-scale agriculture throughout the country. Identifying adapted varieties that may not fit traditional market classes offers farmers on the west side of the state the ability to define the value of their crop. The research in this dissertation focuses on exploring regional breeding using barley and dry beans as a model to develop and identify value-added rotational crops for farmers and desirable end-products for millers, maltsters, bakers, chefs, and consumers. Trials were conducted with a focus on developing winterhardy naked barley lines with moderate β-glucan levels and trialing them around the world, testing barley landraces and breeding lines with colored seed coats for agronomic and nutritional properties, and identifying early maturing dry bean germplasm suited to direct combine harvesting. Plant breeding models rely on the people who implement them; to study one aspect of that human factor, an examination of the gender disparity among plant breeding professors at land grant universities was conducted. The outcomes of this research include an array of food barley germplasm in various stages of the breeding process, a new naked barley cultivar, a guide to growing barley in the region, a range of bean cultivars evaluated in western Washington, and perspectives on the gender imbalance within the plant breeding community

Breeding Barley and Beans for Northwest Washington

Thesis (Ph.D.), Crop Science, Washington State UniversityIn western Washington, small grains and legumes are valuable to growers as rotational crops that help break disease and pest cycles and rest the soil between the more intensive cash crops such as bulbs and tubers. Because of the high rainfall and fertile soils in western Washington, yields of crops such as barley (Hordeum vulgare L.) and dry beans (Phaseolis vulgaris L.) can be higher than under dryland conditions in the interior of the state. However, the price of these crops is set by volume under a commodity system driven by large-scale agriculture throughout the country. Identifying adapted varieties that may not fit traditional market classes offers farmers on the west side of the state the ability to define the value of their crop. The research in this dissertation focuses on exploring regional breeding using barley and dry beans as a model to develop and identify value-added rotational crops for farmers and desirable end-products for millers, maltsters, bakers, chefs, and consumers. Trials were conducted with a focus on developing winterhardy naked barley lines with moderate β-glucan levels and trialing them around the world, testing barley landraces and breeding lines with colored seed coats for agronomic and nutritional properties, and identifying early maturing dry bean germplasm suited to direct combine harvesting. Plant breeding models rely on the people who implement them; to study one aspect of that human factor, an examination of the gender disparity among plant breeding professors at land grant universities was conducted. The outcomes of this research include an array of food barley germplasm in various stages of the breeding process, a new naked barley cultivar, a guide to growing barley in the region, a range of bean cultivars evaluated in western Washington, and perspectives on the gender imbalance within the plant breeding community.Washington State University, Crop Scienc

Organic Farmers' Desired Qualities For Barley

Barley is a versatile crop that can fit well in many organic farming systems. However, organic farmers in the United States have had limited adoption of barley as a regular crop in rotation. Researchers conducted a survey of organic barley producers to find out what they considered to be the main obstacles to growing barley. The primary obstacles are limited markets and price. The breeding and development of better-quality barley suitable for specialty markets may be a way to expand markets and secure a better price. Yield was identified as the most important characteristic to the farmers responding, but other traits such as nutritional quality were also ranked high. Naked or hull-less barley is one possible alternative that allows organic farmers to sell into multiple markets. Most respondents expressed interest in the development of such varieties suitable for organic farming conditions