St. M. TSVETKOV and K. St. TSVETKOV
Dobroudja Agricultural Institute, BG-9520 General Toshevo, Bulgaria
TSVETKOV, St. M. and K. St. TSVETKOV, 2007. An attempt to develop two-rowed awnless barley (vvLkLk) by using genetic awnless plasma of cv. Tsvetelina (Hordeum sativum Jess., ssp. vulgare, var. Dundar-Beyi Zhuk). Bulg. J. Agric. Sci., 13: 529-533
The morphological variability of spike in the two-rowed barley varieties is very narrow. Only awned forms are grown in production. There are no awnless barley varieties. An attempt was made to correct this shortcoming. After crossing awned two-rowed forms (vvlklk) to awnless six-rowed varieties (VVLkLk), the spikes in F1 had an intermediate structure (VvLklk) ending with short awns. A significant variability of new original awnless two-rowed barley varieties (VVLkLk) was developed in F2 for the purposes of breeding and production. Both awnless forms with cylindrical spikes and forms with pyramidal spikes were observed. The awnless two-rowed barley forms with pyramidal spikes were of highest breeding value. Some of them combined very well high number of grains per spike and a relatively short stem.