Evaluación del comportamiento agronómico de 15 variedades mejoradas de cebada (Hordeum vulgare L.) liberadas por el INIAP

Abstract

Barley (Hordeum vulgare L.) is the fifth largest cereal crop in the world, with 50% of the area and 63% of the production volume concentrated in Europe, where ninety million t/ha are produced with average productivity of 4 t/ha. In Ecuador, only 24,000 t/ha is produced, with an average productivity of 0.60 t/ha and production costs of up to U$ 700 per hectare. This research work took place at the Technical University of Ambato, Agricultural Sciences’ Faculty, located in Cevallos City, Tungurahua province. Fifteen barley varieties from the Cereal Program of the Experimental Station "Santa Catalina" INIAP were used. The objective of the exploratory study was to verify the agronomic performance of 15 varieties of barley (Hordeum vulgare L.) released by INIAP in order to identify germplasm with superior characteristics that demonstrate precocity, disease resistance, quality, and high yield. Variables evaluated: plant height, straw type, ear size, number of grains per ear, yield per hectare, hectoliter or specific weight, thousand-grain weight, grain type and color, and presence of diseases. A completely randomized block design (DBCA) was implemented, in the sources of variation that indicated statistical significance, a Tukey test at 5% was performed, while for those that did not adjust, a non-parametric Kruskal Wallis test was performed, with the data obtained it was determined that all treatments were adapted to the conditions of the field under study, the treatment with better adaptability to agroecological conditions was the INIAP-Dorada 71 variety and the one with the best grain yield was INIAP-Quilotoa 2003 with 8724. 44 kg/ha.