Identification of new barley genotypes with better foliar disease resistance in combination with straw and grain yield for Morocco

Abstract

Barley is a main staple crop and large areas in the world are devoted to the crop. On average, 1.8 Mha were devoted to barley in Morocco since 2010. In Morocco, farms integrating crop and livestock are typical, especially among farmers inhabiting the high mountainous and semidesertic areas which are characterized by some of the harshest climatic conditions. Most farmers in Morocco are still growing traditional landraces and have limited access to new improved varieties (Yigezu et al., 2015). The combination of hard climatic conditions and low yielding varieties has resulted in a burden on the system’s productivity, with an average barley yield since 2010 of 1.1t/ha in Morocco which represents 38% of the world’s average yield (FAOSTAT 2019). Farmer’s fidelity to their varieties is based on low adoption rates of available improved varieties and unclear superiority of the new proposed varieties over the farmers’ own. NARS have often difficulties to develop new superior varieties due to inaccurate breeding targets (not in line with farmer preferences), insufficient access to modern breeding tools and the capacity to use them. In turn this leads to yield and missed opportunities in improving nutrition security and alleviating poverty at the household, community and national levels (Najjar 2016a, b).