Plant Genome III Conference Plant Genome III Conference
The winter cereals play an important pan in sustainable crop rotations. Improvement of winter cereals have been limited by plant breeder's ability to select winter hardy progeny from crosses designed to incorporate other agronomic and quality traits. Past research has focused on identification of physiological components of winter hardiness, including crown depth, fructan content, and vernalization requirement. More recently the use of substitution lines in wheat and molecular markers in barley lead to the identification of specific chromosomal regions associated with winterhardiness. Blake and Hayes used the Dicktoo/Morex Doubled Haploid population and showed that barley chromosome 7, homeologous to wheat chromosome 5, carried a major cluster of genes associated with winter hardiness in Dicktoo. This map was primarily based on RFLP data and is currently being re-evaluated using STS-PCR based markers. The STS-PCR based map should refine the location of winterhardiness associated chromosomal regions, allow further evaluation of useful barley variation, and improve selection ability in plant breeding programs.