Precocity in local barleys ( Hordeum vulgare L.) from South-East Asia and the Middle East

Barley grain and green mass are the most valuable concentrated fodders, rich both with complete protein and starch. A search for adaptive sources of precocity in barley, which can be involved in plant breeding, remains a challenge. In field experiments, we studied the earing rate in 884 samples of spring barley from South-East Asia and the Middle East, deposited in the VIR World Collection (N.I. Vavilov Research Institute of Plant Industry, Russia). The samples originated from China (k-3307, k-15881, k-15882, k-18440), India (k-10578, k-25469), North Korea (k-27192, k-30583), and Japan (k-5180, k-6995, k-10922, k-10931) were identified as the sources of precocity. According to prevalence of such forms in the area, the countries, from which the tested samples originated, ranged as follows: Japan > North Korea > China ³ India > Pakistan ³ Afghanistan ³ Mon-golia. To unify the data, «the proportion of the standard» was used as a parameter, calculated as a ratio of an average shoots-to-earing period in standard variety DL36a to the corresponding period for each sample registered in the same year. On the basis of «proportion of the standard» all studied samples were ranked by the rapidity of development. In each sample, a paratypic variability of shoots-to-earing period was estimated and its effect to the trait analyzed.