BREEDING MALTING BARLEY USING HAPLOID TECHNIQUES

A joint project to produce doubled haploid malting barley cultivars was established in 1980 between the Canterbury (NZ) Malting Co. Ltd and the Crop Research Division of the New Zealand Department of Scientific and Industrial Research at the Lincoln Research Centre. This programme uses the Bulbosum Method to produce haploids. Haploids are produced from crosses and selections deemed to have a high probability of producing a new cultivar possessing disease resistance, agronomic merit, high yield and malting quality. A steamlined evaluation system has been developed where doubled haploids are assessed for simply inherited characters simultaneously with seed increase in the early stages of the programme. Micromalting begins at the stage of the first unreplicated yield trials. When lines with obvious agronomic defects have been eliminated, standard cultivars of known yield potential and quality are used in replicated trials to identify superior doubled haploid lines. Superior doubled haploid lines are recycled as parents as soon as they are identified.