Mining the ICARDA Barley Germplasm Collection for Biotic and Abiotic Priority Traits

The results of numerous climate change models all indicate that large sectors of Australian cereal zone will face higher temperatures at key phases in the crop development will be subjected to periodic moisture stress in the form of drought or excess water. Further, it is likely that there will be greater seasonal variation. With these combined factors significant losses in yield can be expected. Barley breeding programs in Australia are gearing up to meet these challenges and are screening breeding populations and genetic resource collections within Australia for useful variation. However, barley breeders on both sides of Australia have made it clear that to make significant progress they will require more variation than is currently available in Australia. This necessitates accessing offshore germplasm collections and selecting useful material to import. Due to cost of importing material through quarantine, an ideal scenario is to screen material offshore and bring in only selected genotypes. The ICARDA genebank holds the world's largest and most diverse collection of barley. Its breeding programs is developing valuable germplasm distributed throughout the world and can be of high value to barley improvement program for Australia.

The strategy used to reach the objective is hereby listed: 1) FIGS approach for selection of best bet disease sets; 2) Disease screening methods; 3) FIGS approach for selecting heat/drought subsets; 4) Drought and heat tolerance screening.

The project aim and research activities are mainly focused on genetic selection of best adapted Australian and ICARDA's barley varieties. From ICARDA's genebank, the resistant varieties for abiotic (heat and drought) and biotic (SFNB, NFNB, PM, Yr and Lr) stresses, will be identified and sent to Australia. The first analysis and selection will be made in several countries like Morocco, Lebanon, Turkey, Tunisia and Ethiopia. Especially Morocco which more closely resemble Australian's Mediterranean climatic region, will play a key role in the research. The genotypes obtained will be finally tested in Australia where NARS, by further analysis, will select the suitable ones. All this will help to find new and strong varieties for next climate change stresses by the fusion of most completed varieties from different areas. The benefit will be mainly at economic, social and environmental level. The new varieties will contribute to help farmers having constant harvest and reduce food risks caused by climate change. The reduction of losses will revitalize rural communities and minimize rural to urban migration. The use of host resistance will result in less application of fungicides, pesticides and insecticides by farmers. These will protect the environment and enhance generation of biological diversity. These world wide collaboration, will be useful, by several workshop and training, for capacity development of different NARS and will facilitate efforts in breeding, between different areas and locations, for the challenges of the next years