Malting Quality of ICARDA Elite Winter Barley (<i>Hordeum vulgare</i> L.) Germplasm Grown in Moroccan Middle Atlas
Outmane Bouhlal, Jean Raymond Affricot, Damiano Puglisi, Adil El-Baouchi, Fatima El Otmani, Mostafa Kandil, Abdellatif Hafidi, Mesut Keser, Miguel Sanchez‐Garcia, Andrea Visioni
Abstract
The use of barley (Hordeum vulgare L.) in Morocco is still limited to food and feed despite the\namplified demand by local industries for imported malt. This study aims to evaluate 36 barley\nelite lines for major grain physicochemical parameters and malt quality traits. Analysis of variance,\nPearson correlation, principal component analysis (PCA), and hierarchical cluster analysis (HCA)\nwere performed. The results showed significant genotypic variation among genotypes for individual\ngrain and malt traits. High broad sense heritability was obtained for all traits except for plump\ngrain percentage, malt friability, and germination capacity. Starch, malt extract, Kolbach index,\ngrain area, and test weight correlated significantly and negatively with barley protein. Malt extract\ncorrelated positively with Kolbach index and starch, but a negative correlation with soluble protein\nand malt protein was found. Based on 12 characters, 77% of the total genotypic variation was\nexplained by the three first principal components following PCA and four clusters were depicted\nbased on HCA. Genotypes of high interest with desirable levels of quality standards were identified\nto be used as a malt quality traits donor while designing crossing programs.