Genetics of Crop Input Reduction (Water, Nitrogen, Fungicide) in Facultative/Winter 6-row Barley (Hordeum vulgare)

Climate change is predicted to intensify crop water needs and disease pressures at the same time that dwindling water resources and ecological disruptions call for reductions in irrigation, pesticide and fertilizer use.  In response, the Triticeae Coordinated Agricultural Project (TCAP) has been created to develop wheat and barley varieties adapted to more variable temperatures and reduced inputs. As part of the TCAP, this project focuses on identifying alleles for water use efficiency (WUE), nitrogen use efficiency (NUE) and disease resistance in facultative/winter 6-row barley (Hordeum vulgare). To this end, an association mapping panel of 300 advanced breeding lines was planted in 3 trials: 1) a fall-planted NUE experiment with a standard nitrogen application treatment and a reduced treatment (70% of standard), 2) a spring-planted WUE experiment with a standard irrigation treatment and a reduced treatment (60% of standard) and 3) a fall-planted barley stripe rust and scald resistance experiment. All trials were planted as type-2 modified augmented designs at Corvallis, OR during the 2011-2012 field season, with the NUE and WUE treatments in separate but adjacent field blocks. Canopy spectral reflectance was used to estimate relative plant nitrogen and plant water status in the NUE and WUE trials, respectively. Data for 11 general agronomic traits were collected from the NUE and WUE trials, and malting quality traits were determined for a subset of the NUE trial. We are obtaining genotypic data at 9,000 SNP markers and will use them for genome-wide association studies.