Genomics-Assisted Analysis and Exploitation of Barley Diversity

We propose to measure the detailed pattern of biodiversity in wild and semi-wild barley and identify useful traits for use in breeding programs. Our primary focus will be on traits that are essential for sustainable, environmentally benign crop production in the face of climate change. We propose to achieve this by combining high throughput genomics with traditional skills in genetics and phenotyping (measuring the physical properties of the plants and the corresponding crop).

Crop plants have evolved from their wild ancestors during domestication and selective breeding over the last ca. 10 000 years. Only a fraction of the species has contributed to the cultivated gene pool. This loss of diversity has been either genome-wide, after passage through genetic bottlenecks, or at specific loci after selective breeding. Many studies have demonstrated the value of alleles originating from wild and locally adapted germplasm and a challenge for future breeders is to identify and recruit such alleles into cultivated germplasm. The central goal of this project is to establish an incremental association mapping approach based on different population types for the discovery of new gene alleles in wild barley (Hordeum vulgare ssp. spontaneum), which can be exploited for crop breeding. Our approach will build upon the strong genomics base of barley and will apply association genetics concepts pioneered in humans and Arabidopsis to test the efficiency of the association genetics approach for identifying gene alleles in Hordeum that are needed by the breeder. Our second objective is to recruit the new useful gene alleles, which have been discovered in the above studies, into advanced back-cross (ABC) breeding programs derived from wide crosses between H. spontaneum germplasm and elite cultivars. This will allow us to determine the efficiencies of identification and extraction of useful alleles in barley breeding programs based upon wide crosses. Our third major project objective is to use the huge DNA and marker data set obtained in the project to determine important population genetic parameters for barley.