Genetic diversity of Omani barley (Hordeum vulgare L.) germplasm

Abstract

Abstract Oman has enormous diversity in important crops of global significance like wheat and barley considered as strategic crops. The country has an ancient cultivation history of barley because of its location on the eastern edge of the Arabian Peninsula and is known to have several landraces spread across all the agro-ecological regions. The present study was undertaken to comprehend genetic diversity in 16 indigenous Omani USDA accessions repatriated recently to select parents for hybridization in national crop improvement programs. The trial was conducted consecutively for two cropping seasons (2017–2018 and 2018–2019) from November to March on the layouts of loamy soil sites under sprinkler irrigation system in augmented design under spacing and crop husbandry practices as per national recommendations. The data on eight quantitative characters and presence (score 1) or absence (score 0) of anthocyanin pigmentation on two plant parts were subjected to both hierarchical cluster analysis (HCA) and principal component analysis (PCA) to know the contribution of characters toward diversity and form prime diverse clusters. The results indicated not only significant differences between accessions (p < 0.05) with respect to the most of quantitative characters but also two significant correlations involving four characters associated with maturity and inflorescence (p < 0.05). The results of two multivariate analyses led to the formation of four diverse clusters with similar constituents of accessions to the most extent, thus supporting each other in discerning diversity. The parents were selected for hybridization for improving characters of growth for higher yield or productivity with anthocyanin-related characters.