The breeding influence on the phenology of southern Pannonian six-rowed winter barley

Abstract

In order to decrease negative impact of the climate changes on grain yield production, adjustment of crop phenology with changing climate should represent important breeding objective. As result of breeding activities and changes in agro-ecological conditions, phenology of different cereal crops has been notably changed in past century. However, information about changes in duration of developmental phases of winter barley under conditions of southern Pannonian Plain are scarce. Therefore, we evaluated changes in developmental pattern in historical set of 15 six-rowed winter barley cultivars from four breeding periods, released in past 50 years. The study was conducted during two growing seasons at the experimental field of the Institute of Field and Vegetable Crops, Novi Sad, Serbia.Results from our study showed that duration of studied developmental phases varied across growing seasons and cultivars. Year of cultivar release were negatively related with duration of tillering period (r = -0.83), emergence-anthesis (r = -0.75) and total crop cycle (r = -0.69). On the other hand, modern cultivars had prolonged duration of stem elongation phase compared to the older ones.