Development of cultivated barley (Hordeum vulgare L.) germplasm core collection in the National Plant Gene Bank of Iran

The large number and high diversity of genetic resource collections usually affect the accuracy of assessment and exploitation of the potential of these resources. The core collection provides the solution for the challenges of genetic resources manegement. This study aimed to develop the core collection of native barley germplasm of Iran. The germplasm collection of barley germplasm (Hordeum vulgare) in the National Plant Gene Bank of Iran includes about 3150 native barley accessions with high genetic diversity. The core collection of barley germplasm was developed in five main steps. For this purpose, from 2011 to 2019, the traits of native barley accesions of Iran were evaluated. Then, by using the data of evaluated traits and collecting site, the collection accessions were grouped based on their similarityies. The strategy used for the grouping was evaluated based on a hierarchical structure defined based on the areas of collection and qualitative morphological traits. Variation in other morphological traits in different groups obtained from cluster analysis was also studied. By grouping similar accessions and selecting 10% of each group, the level of allele diversity increased in the core collection. The barley core collection was developed with 333 accessions which accouned for more than 10% of the main collection. A comparison of Shannon index values ​​in the core collection with the main collection showed that the core collection had higher diversity for most of the qualitative traits of the index. The results demonstrated that the selection of right accessions for the core collection and its efficiency in preserving the diversity of the germplasm of main collection in a smaller and more accessible collection.