HETEROSIS ANALYSIS FOR SEED QUALITY TRAITS IN SPRING BARLEY

The purpose of this study was to identify and select best parents and best hybrid combinations through the study of heterosis and the combining ability of six spring barley varieties (Martin, Taj, Ardhaoui, Sahli, Rihane and Salmas) and their F1?s progenitors among a 6x6 complete diallel fashion. The experiment was done at Beja INRAT experimental station. Spike length, grain number per spike, thousand kernel weight, beta glucan content and protein content were investigated. Results for analysis of variance revealed highly significant differences among all the F1 hybrid means and their respective six parental values for all the characters studied. The best crosses were (Sahli x Salmas) for protein content, (Taj x Salmas) for grain number per spike, (Sahli x Ardhaoui) for thousand kernel weight and (Martin x Taj) for beta glucan content. Martin x Salmas is the best specific cross for thousand kernel weight. It had been showed that it is very difficult to transgress characters such as quality from improved genotypes to local landraces. On the basis of GCA effects, 5 parents, Taj, Ardhaoui, Sahli, Rihane and Salmas were found good general combiners for seed quality traits. Among the included parents in the investigated genotypes, local cultivar Sahli is the proven positive common genitor to improve grain quality.