Selection of young barley plants for tolerance to high soil acidity in relation with some agronomic characteristics of mature plants

Summary In four segregating populations of barley, grown in a naturally highly acid soil good plants and less vigorous ones were marked in a 3–4 leaf stage of development.Some agronomic characters of mature plants were studied in relation with the level of tolerance to high soil acidity of their progenies when tested in a seedling stage in a laboratory method.As compared with the good groups the reductions proved highly significant viz. 60% for mean number of tillers per plant, 25% for average culm length, 35% for mean number of kernels per spike and about 12% for 1000-grain weight.On the average more than 95% of the good plants showed a high level of tolerance to high soil acidity, indicating a close correlation between low-pH tolerance and agronomic performance.Although a rather high percentage (40%) of the progenies among the plants marked as bad was found to be tolerant, those lines showed a poor general performance.This goes to show that selection for tolerance to high soil acidity before flowering is an advisable procedure, without the risk of including sensitive lines or losing otherwise valuable genotypes.This study was carried out during a fellowship of the Spanish Ministry of Agriculture.