TALBINAH-21: PAKISTAN’S FIRST HULL-LESS, HIGH YIELDING AND LODGING TOLERANT BARLEY VARIETY

Talbinah-21, a first hull-less barley variety was prepared at Wheat Research Institute (WRI), Ayub Agricultural Research Institute (AARI), Faisalabad Punjab-Pakistan during 2021 and released for irrigated and moisture stress areas of Punjab as well. The proposed genotype with parental AGER/2*PETUNIA 1 with pedigree CBSW01WM00121T-0TOPY-4M-1Y-1M-1Y-OM-0AP was earmarked due to promising hull-less line and selected from the exotic breeding materials ‘’International Naked Barley Yield Trial (INBYT)’’ during 2014-15. This trial was received from International Centre for Agricultural Research in Dry Areas (ICARDA), Terbol, Lebanon, through National Wheat Coordinator, National Agricultural Research Centre (NARC), Islamabad. Although, the yield performance was not up to the mark with respect to local check Jau-83, but the Entry No 12 expressed itself a promising hull-less line and acclimatised completely well among all 25 entries in the said trials.

So, keeping in view the expressivity of the line, it was added and evaluated with the variety code of B-15006 for yield performance in regular yield trial for one year during 2015-16 and in Provincial Uniform Barley Yield Trial (PUBYT) for continuous two years during 2016-17 to 2017-18. It performed better than commercial check variety of Haider-93 by 3.78% more yield in regular yield trial and 22.41 and 8.04% high grain yield in provincial trials during both years. In national uniform barley yield trial, the purposed hull-less line also excelled the yield than the check variety by 1.72% in 2018-19 and 12.9% in 2019-20. It performed also best under rainfed areas by giving 3.76% more yield than the check during 2017-18 and 23% during 2018-19.

Disease, infestation was also found resistant. The seed is amber in colour with shape of elliptical. Protein content in the proposed genotype is ranging from 12-14.4% while thousand grain weight was found from 37-40 gram. It was found lodging tolerant and shattering resistant. The mentioned genotype (Talbinah-21) was approved in 2021 by Punjab Seed Council (PSC) for different ecological zones across the province for general cultivation.