effect of growing season and variety on quality of spring two-rowed barley

Quality of barley consists of precisely defined grain quality attributes (grain weight, grading, grain protein concentration, etc.) and malt quality attributes (extract, viscosity, Kolbach index, etc.). Barley quality attributes are quantitatively inherited and greatly affected by environmental factors such as temperature, available water, nitrogen fertilizer and soil type. The main objective of this study was to determine the effects of genotype and growing conditions (year) on grain and malt quality attributes in barley grown under field conditions in the Pannonian zone. The eight spring two-row barley varieties were studied during a seven growing seasons (1998-2004) on the location Novi Sad (45°20'N, 15°51'E, 86 m asl). The growing season predominantly affected variation of the all studied grain and malt quality attributes of spring barley where its percentage of variance was 35.2%, 20.2%, 32.5%, 25.4%, 30.9%, 31.2%, and 38.5% for grain weight (GW), grading (GRA), grain protein content (GPC), viscosity (VIS), Kolbach index (KOL), Hartong number (HAR) and extract content (EXT), respectively. The interaction of GxE comprised of 28.4%, 64.5%, 38.2%, 54.0%, 39.6%, 41.2% and 23.7% of variation for GW, GRA, GPC, VIS, KOL, HAR and EXT, respectively. The genetic component of variance ranged from 11.1% for GRA to 35.0% for EXT. The heritability was the lowest for GRA-0.54 and the highest for EXT-0.91. Across growing seasons GW ranged from 39.6 to 46.1g, GRA from 76.7 to 91.1%, GPC from 12.1 to 13.5g 100-1g dm, VIS from 1.44 till 1.61m.Ps, KOL from 32.5 to 42,9%, HAR from 31.9 to 45.9VZ 45°C and EXT from 76.3 to 80.3% dm. Out of seven growing seasons EXT was acceptable in four ranging from79.2 to 81.4% dm. Although growing conditions in the Pannonian zone are less favorable for malting barley production in relation to western Europe it does not exclude malting barley production with acceptable quality in the Pannonian zone environments. The varieties Scarlett and Viktor performed quite acceptable quality in the Pannonian zone and may be recommended for commercial production in this region for malt industry.