WINTER BARLEY GRAIN WEIGHT STABILITY UNDER DIFFERENT MANAGEMENT PRACTICES AT NARDI FUNDULEA

Cereals provide over 50% of the total world crop production, their seeds being an important resource for human and animal feed, as well as for the industry. From these, winter barley is an appreciated crops by farmers due its ability to adapt to less favourable environmental conditions and also give high and economically efficient yields. The barley grain weights (GW) along with grain size are universally considered to be closely correlated with the level of technological quality indicators required by the malt and beer industry. Grain weight is first trait used to classify the barley seed quality. The objective of this paper was to identify genotypic differences between seventeen Romanian winter barley genotypes in grain weight as related with grain yield and GW stability across different management practices. Large differences (8.2-20.8%) were found among the tested varieties and advanced lines for GW stability, underlined by the coefficient of variation (CV%). Based on regressions, varieties and lines can be grouped in more responsive to environments favourable to higher grain weight (winter two row barley lines DH 267-66 and DH 314-1), or able to maintain grain weight in less favourable environments (winter six row barley Ametist, Onix, Lucian and winter two row barley Gabriela varieties). The lack of correlation between GW and CV% and frequency of GW values above 42 g correlated significantly negative with GW average (r = -0.82), indicates that there are possibilities to improve this trait and also to have progress in its stability.