Results of winter and spring barley breeding in the context of climatic change

Murányi, István

The appreciation of domestic barley cropping can be expected in Hungary after her entry into the European Union. Since Hungarian agriculture is poor in capital, new varieties that require relatively low input yet yield heavy crops can be economically grown. The technology of barley cropping excellently fits in the environmentally sound cropping programmes of the European Union. It can be expected that malting barley will remain a well selling (exportable) crop also in the future. Its economic stability has been considerably increased by the introduction of the interventional buying-up of feeding barley.

The breeding results of the Kompolt Research Institute permanently add to the value of the biological bases of both winter and spring barley cropping in Hungary. Here, intense barley breeding (including winter and spring barley, malting and feeding barley) has been carried out since the eighties. Main objects are to increase cropping capacity, yield reliability, winter hardiness, stem strength, resistance to diseases, and to improve crop quality.

Breeding activities in the Institute are based on the method of hybridisation completed with mutation breeding, immunity breeding, and breeding for improvement in quality. Also, some excellent varieties have been acclimatised. All in all, 14 winter barley varieties (including 12 feeding and 2 malting barley varieties) and 6 spring barley varieties (including 3 malting and 3 feeding barley varieties) bred by the Institute have been registered. Its winter barley varieties do not only have excellent cropping capacity but also reliable (excellent) winter hardiness and drought resistance, which is necessary for successful cropping under the conditions of extreme weather conditions incidental to global warming. As for the spring barley varieties of the Institute, they exhibit high cropping capacity, good drought resistance, excellent (good) resistance to powdery mildew and, in case of malting barley varieties, also favourable malting traits.

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