Genetic characterization of barley varieties under saline sodic soil

The field experiment was conducted at Genetics and Plant Breeding Research Farm, Narendra Deva University of Agriculture and Technology, Faizabad, in Simple Lattice Design with 2 replications, during Rabi 2010-11 to assess 64 released varieties of barley, showing wide spectrum of variation for various characters. The characters studied were Yield and yield contributing traits; namely plant height, days to maturity, fertile tillers per plant, length of main spike, grains per main spike, 1000-grains weight, grain yield per plant and Morphological traits; namely growth habit, morphology of leaf, presence of anthocyanin pigmentation, spikelet arrangement, awned/awnless, tip sterility, seed colour, seed shape, waxiness on leaf. The data on 7 characters was utilized for estimation of mean, range and least significant differences, correlations, path-coefficients and genetic divergence The varieties RD-2552, HBL-276, RD-2592, PL-419, Kedar, PL-751, JB-58, K-508 produced higher grain yield per plant and showed high to very high mean performance for several other yield component also.