Improvement of Field Screening for Winter Hardiness of Barley

Low temperature is one of the most severe abiotic stress factors limiting growth, productivity and distribution of winter cereals. Reliable field screening method, which can detect small differences in winter survival, is important for the effective selection and development of plants to identify superior cold tolerant winter cereal genotypes. This study was undertaken to provide improved screening method of winter hardiness in the field by increasing the accuracy in evaluating winter hardiness of barley (Hordeum vulgare L.). We introduced furrow in field screening of winter survival. By sowing the plants at the ridge and base, we could minimize the effect of topographic variation in a field by giving higher and lower level of stress at the same time. This method could be used by breeders to conduct accurate evaluation of winter hardiness by selecting the better treatment, which shows close to normal distribution, among the winter survival rate from the ridge, base and mean survival rate of the two in a screening field.