Determinants of grain number responding to environmental and genetic factors in two- and six-rowed barley types

Abstract

Context Barley is one of the most relevant crops worldwide and an essential component of agriculture in Europe in general, and in the Mediterranean region in particular. As cropping areas will hardly rise in the future, yield must be improved to enhance global crop production. Naturally, understanding how yield is affected by environmental and genetic factors in two- and six-rowed barley can help us to develop more efficient management and breeding strategies to increase current yield gains. Objective We aimed to determine the relative importance of genetic and environmental factors on numerical and physiological components of GN for two- and six-rowed barley types. Methods To generate a large and unbiased database, we compiled data of yield and its numerical and physiological components from crop-based experiments (i.e., excluding controlled-conditions experiments and/or approaches using isolated plants) reported in figures and tables in every single paper having the word “barley” in the title published over 25 years in four rigorous and prestigious international journals: Field Crop Research, European Journal of Agronomy, Crop Science and Crop and Pasture Science (formerly Australian Journal of Agricultural Research) between January 1996 and December 2021, both inclusive. Results Spike number (SN) was the most relevant numerical component explaining GN regardless of the source of variation. Regarding physiological components, it seemed that when the driving force was environmental factors, spike dry weight at flowering (SDWF) was more relevant than fruiting efficiency (FE); whilst when the differences were due to genotypic factors, clearly the FE was the component mostly responsible for the changes in GN. When the analysis was restricted to two- and six-rowed barley types, GN improvements were mainly explained by changes in SN for both two- and six-rowed barley types. However, when the physiological components were considered, the responsiveness of GN was more related to SDWF than to FE in two-rowed genotypes, while the opposite was true for the six-rowed type. Conclusions In barley, SN always explained the responses of GN better than grain number per spike (GNS), regardless the source of variation and the type of barley. Respect to the physiological components, environmental factors affected GN mainly through affecting SDWF, while genotypic factors affected GN through affecting FE. SDWF and FE were more relevant for explaining changes in GN two- and six-rowed barleys, respectively. Implications Breeders and agronomists can be aware that it will be more likely to achieve significant gains in yield through focusing more on SN than on GNS regardless of the barley type, whilst regarding the physiological components it would be more relevant to focus on SDWF in two-rowed barley, and on FE in six-rowed barley.