Agronomic Traits and Yield Performance Variation in Hulled and Naked Barley (Hordeum vulgare L.) Varieties for Adaptation in East Algeria

Hulled barley has been extensively cultivated in Algeria. While naked barley was neglected in terms of research and genetic improvement. But it is now receiving renewed interest due to the potential health and agronomic benefits. Therefore, the aim of this research was to evaluate the agronomic performance of naked and hulled barley landraces collected from main production areas in the East of Algeria.

The field experiments were conducted under rain-fed conditions, in 2018 and 2019 cropping seasons, in semi-arid zone of eastern Algeria. Both populations of plants were characterized agronomically, taking into account for nine quantitative traits.

Hulled barley cultivars outperformed the naked barley and from the results of Principal Component Analysis, it was found that the most important variables for the classification of barley cultivars are high grain yield, high straw yield and high biological yield. Hulled barley varieties showed the best yield performance, contrary to naked barley, which showed the poorer yield performance.