N. PRZULJ, V. MOMCILOVIC and N. MLADENOV

Institute of Field and Vegetable Crops, Maksima Gorkog 30, 21000 Novi Sad, Yugoslavia

Abstract

PRZULJ, N., V. MOMCILOVIC and N. MLADENOV, 2000. Grain filling in six-rowed winter barley. Bulg. J. Agric. Sci., 6:567-573

Kernel weight is a function of the rate and duration of grain filling (GF). In order to study the relationships among grain yield and yield components and the rate and duration of GF in winter six-rowed barley, field experiments were conducted at Novi Sad during the 1985-1988 period. A quadratic polynomial was used to describe the relationship between kernel weight and time from anthesis. The rate and duration of grain filling were obtained from the fitted curve. Accumulated growing-degree days (GDD) from anthesis were used as a time scale. The rate of GF ranged from 0.058 to 0.080 mg kernel-1 GDD-1 and duration of GF from 505 to 888 GDD. Rate of GF had a positive association with yield (0.81) and kernel number per spike (0.50). Duration of GF had a negative influence on grain yield (0.69). The positive correlation of yield with kernel number and the positive correlations of kernel number with kernel weight and rate of GF suggest that it should be possible to simultaneously improve the rate of GF and kernel weight. The negative correlation between the rate and duration of GF (-0.88) was mainly due to high temperatures in the late and final grain fill phases.

Key words: winter barley (Hordeum vulgare ssp. vulgare L.), grain filling, yield, correlation