California Report

L.F. Jackson and L.W. Gallagher
Department of Agronomy and Range Science
University of California, Davis

Barley production

    Barley production in California consists primarily of fall-sown 6-row spring feed barley. Most of the acreage is concentrated in the Central (Sacramento and San Joaquin Valleys) Valley and surrounding foothills and in the south-central coastal valley foothills. Barley is grown as an irrigated rotation crop in the Central Valley and as a rainfed crop in the Central Valley foothills and south-central coastal foothills. A substantial acreage of spring-sown feed (6-row) or malting (2-row, primarily) barley also is grown under irrigation in the Tulelake basin in the northeastern portion of California and serves as a rotation crop for potato. Statewide, barley was grown on 130,000 acres in 2001.

    Barley stripe rust was the most important disease in both the Sacramento Valley and the San Joaquin Valley in 2001. Recently released stripe rust resistant barley cultivars UC 933 and UC 937 were among the highest yielding in the Sacramento and San Joaquin Valleys in the 3-yr period 1999-01, while the stripe rust resistant breeding lines UCD PYT99-A13 and UCD PYT99-C3 showed high yield potential in 2001.

Germplasm development and evaluation

    The germplasm development program in California includes breeding and selection by public and private plant breeders and coordinated statewide testing of promising advanced lines from both types of programs. The objectives of the University of California barley breeding program are to (1) conduct a barley improvement program using traditional breeding methodologies with the overall goal to develop and introduce cultivars of barley with good agronomic performance and end-use properties for California farmers, and (2) maintain and develop germplasm required to sustain barley production statewide.

    Incorporation of resistance to barley stripe rust (Puccinia striiformis) into high yielding genotypes continues to be the primary goal of the UC Davis barley breeding program. Progress towards meeting this goal was made in recent years with the release of three resistant cultivars (UC 933, UC 937 and UC 960). Additional sources of resistance to stripe rust have been incorporated into segregating populations because of the uncertainty of the durability of the resistance found in these new cultivars. An early maturing cultivar, UC 969, also was released. The early maturity of UC 969 allows it to escape damage from stripe rust.

    Evaluations for the University of California Cooperative Extension statewide testing program were conducted in the intermountain valleys of northeastern California, the Sacramento and San Joaquin Valleys, and in the south central coastal region in 2001. Entries in the tests included standard cultivars, new and soon-to-be released cultivars, and advanced breeding lines from both public and private breeding programs.

    Intermountain winter barley. The intermountain winter barley test contained 8 entries. Unfortunately, a season-long drought and shortage of water available for irrigation prevented the grower-cooperator at the site near Montague in Siskiyou county from irrigating the nursery. Instead, the test was hayed-off. The stripe rust resistant cultivar Kold was the highest yielding in the previous year (2000). Kold and Strider were the highest yielding in the three-year period 1998-2000. Fall-sown spring barley. The fall-sown spring barley test contained 23 entries, including 10 cultivars and 13 advanced lines. Stripe rust was severe on several entries (Arivat, Max, Patti, Nebula, APB A-5, WWW BA8017, APB C-26, and APB C-15) at one or more of the following sites: Butte, UC Davis, Madera, and Kings. BYDV was severe on several entries (Arivat, Meltan, and YU597-399) at the Madera site. Lodging was severe on several entries (Arivat, APB A-5, UCD 97-4286, UCD PYT99 A-19, UC 1032R, YU 597-390, and APB C-26) at one or more of the following sites: Butte, Madera, and Kings. Average yields ranged from 870 lb/acre at the rainfed Tulare site to 5880 lb/acre at the Madera site. Entry UCD PYT99 A-13 was highest yielding in the Sacramento Valley; entries UCD PYT99 A-13 and UCD PYT99 C-3, in the San Joaquin Valley; and entries APB C-26, YU 597-390, YU 597-399, and UCD 97-4286, in rainfed sites. In the three-year period 1999-2001, entry UC 933 was the highest yielding in the Sacramento Valley; entries UCD 97-4286 and UC 937, in the San Joaquin Valley; and entries UCD 97-4286 and UC 933, in rainfed sites.

    Intermountain spring barley. The intermountain spring barley test contained 40 entries, including 22 cultivars and 18 advanced lines. Because of a severe drought and a mandate against using surface water for irrigation in the Klamath/Tulelake basin, neither the spring-sown spring barley test, the Western Regional Spring barley nursery, material from Pat Hayes' Oregon State University barley breeding program, nor cereal rust screening nurseries were planted at the UC Intermountain Research and Extension Center at Tulelake. For the remaining sites in the region, average yields ranged from 2840 lb/acre at the Shasta-Lassen site to 3330 lb/acre at the Siskiyou site. Baronesse was highest yielding at the Shasta-Lassen site while Xena, Lacey and UC/TL PYT99 B-32 were highest yielding at the Siskiyou site. In the three-year period 1999-2001, Statehood and Xena were highest yielding region-wide.

Cereal rust disease survey, disease screening

    Barley stripe rust was severe on susceptible lines and cultivars in both the Sacramento Valley and the San Joaquin Valley in 2001. Barley stripe rust was evaluated at UC Davis on approximately 2500 lines from the National Small Grains Collection (NSGC) and public and private breeders. Germplasm included cooperator lines (from Hayes, Hensleigh, Clark, Wesenberg, An Hang, McProud, Treat, Roche, Ullrich, Wright, Carleton, and Pickering (New Zealand)),1000 lines from the NSGC, and about 100 Hordeum spontaneum accessions from Steffenson. By the time of the final disease severity rating, about 35% of the cooperator lines and 58% of the winter barley accessions from the NSGC showed a 100S reaction. Many lines (22% of the cooperator lines and 7% of the winter barley accessions from the NSGC) remained BSR-free. Rust collections submitted to USDA from California in 2001 included: wheat stripe rust - 13, wheat leaf rust - 20, barley stripe rust - 10, barley leaf rust - 1, oat stem rust - 2, oat crown rust - 1. These collections included 10 races of wheat stripe rust (6 new races) and 8 races of barley stripe rust (3 new races). Estimates of statewide losses due to rust diseases were 2% for wheat stripe rust, 2.5% for barley stripe rust and 3% for wheat leaf rust.