Genetic diversity in Hordeum agriocrithon E. Åberg, six-rowed barley with brittle rachis, from Tibet

Twenty-two accessions of H. agriocrithon from Tibet were investigated for morphological and physiological characters, and genotypes combined alleles at the tightly linked Est1, Est2 and Est4 complex locus encoding esterase isozymes. H. agriocrithon was similar in plant type to Tibetan cultivated barley, but different from H. spontaneum. The accessions of H. agriocrithon were classified by their spike-awn types into vars. eu-agriocrithon, dawoense and paradoxon, with one exceptional accession of the awnless naked type similar to var. nuditonsum of cultivated barley. They were characterized by spring growth habit, susceptibility to Japanese race I of powdery mildew, and either of the same three esterase genotypes as those of cultivated barley from Tibet, Bhutan and Ladakh. The similarity suggested that the esterase complex locus on chromosome 3H is closely linked with some QTL for adaptation to Tibetan conditions. On the origin of H. agriocrithon, it might be concluded that natural hybridization between H. spontaneum and six-rowed barley occurred in northern parts of Afghanistan, Pakistan or India, and seeds of their segregants mixed into barley or wheat were brought up to Tibet, resulting six-rowed barley with brittle rachis.