A New Six-rowed, Covered Barley Cultivar, ‘Gwangan’ with High Yield

Abstract

‘Gwangan’ is a new six-rowed covered barley cultivar developed by the National Institute of Crop Science (NICS), R.D.A in 2004. This cultivar is developed from a cross between “Mirak” and ‘Milyang59’ in 1995. An F6 selection was made at Milyang in 2001 and it was tested as ‘Suwon386’ in regional adaptation yield trial (RYT) for subsequent three years. ‘Gwangan’ has a winter habit (group IV) variety and compact spikes with long rough awns. It shows erect plant type with good 1000 kernel weight (34.9 g) when grown under normal cultivation in Korea. It also has strong winter hardiness and tolerance to wet-soil. The average culm length of ‘Gwangan’ was 7cm shorter than that of ‘Olbori’. It is susceptible to powdery mildew. However it has strong resistance to barley yellow mosaic virus (BaYMV) except for strains of Milyang province. ‘Gwangan’ yielded 12%, 10% more than ‘Olbori’ in upland and paddy field of RYT, respectively. This cultivar is recommended for all of the barley cultivation area in Korea.