Environ Exp Biol (2016) 14: 33–41

Assessment of drought tolerance in barley: integrated selection criterion and drought tolerance indices

Abstract

Although drought stress is the most serious problem affecting barley production, progress in the development of resistant cultivars is limited due to the lack of effective selection criteria. The objectives of this study were (i) to selection drought tolerant barley lines based on agro-morphological traits and tolerance indices and (ii) to assess use-efficiency of integrated selection criterion in screening of tolerance lines across multi-environments. For these purposes, 40 doubled haploid lines along with parental genotypes were grown during two consecutive years (2013–2014) under different water regimes at the Research Station of Mahabad Payame-Noor University and Miandoab Agricultural Research Station, West Azerbaijan, Iran. According to combined analysis of variance, in both locations a large significant difference was observed among lines for most of the studied traits indicating that selection in this materials would be useful. Correlation coefficients (for two years and two locations) indicated significantly positive relation between different tolerance indices and integrated selection criterion with grain yields under non-stress and stress conditions. Multivariate analysis and three-dimensional graphs showed that integrated selection criterion index, similar to other indices, was able to distinguish the tolerant and desirable lines across multiple environments. Finally, our results indicated that doubled haploid lines numbers L3, L13, L18, L29 and L35 were desirable lines for both conditions.