Association Mapping of Low Temperature Tolerance in Barley.

The development of an agronomically competitive variety of low temperature tolerant (LTT) winter barley that could be sown in the autumn and harvested in early July would benefit the barley industry in Minnesota. Winter barley has the ability to increase yields and quality over the traditional spring sown crop. However, limited genetic resources are available in current Midwest-adapted barley germplasm. Wild barley, the progenitor of cultivated barley, has a high level of diversity that could be leveraged to support the development of LTT barley. To evaluate if this resource holds any novel LTT genes, 307 accessions from the Wild Barley Diversity Collection were subjected to an artificial freezing treatment in addition to an overwintering field trial in Saint Paul, Minnesota. An association mapping method was utilized to identify and map quantitative trait loci (QLT) conferring LTT. Based on frost injury data, three QTL were located on chromosomes 3H, 4H, and 7H.