Leaf stripe resistance of spring barley cultivars

Summary

Results of six years of screening trials clearly indicate that effective resistance against barley leaf stripe is available, also in modern cultivars. Among the spring barley cultivars that are currently most widely grown in Denmark, Cabaret, Troon, Sebastian, Justina and Brazil appear most resistant, but only Brazil combines a favourable resistance performance (= low mean and standard deviation of environment-adjusted leaf stripe incidence) with a high number of observations (= years of testing). However, the cultivars appearing most resistant over the years are relatively old ones such as Vada, Alabama, Odin and particularly Scarlett, which has been resistant in all years in which it was tested. Amongst the new cultivars, Marigold, Native and SW Immer appear to have the most promising resistance properties so far. However, they have only been tested in two years of which only one had reasonably high infection levels. The results furthermore indicate huge year-to-year variation in infection levels, presumably due to variation in environmental conditions related to leaf stripe infection.