Genetic and Phenotypic Variation for Flowering Time Genes in Barley (Hordeum vulgare)

Objective: Flowering Time (FT) in cereals controlled by genes that had a main factor on plant development. Methods: Genetic and phenotypic diversity of four flowering time genes (FT2, FT3, FT4, Ppd-H1) in 19 genotypes of cultivated and wild barley was evaluated and a total of 107 alleles were amplified. Genotypes based on days to flowering time and molecular data were grouped into early, middle and late maturity. Results: Molecular data analysis showed that 83% of variety was observed within populations and 17% was related to among population.  Neis the maximum and minimum genetic distance between early - late (0.629) and early–middle was (0.0224).  The average of allelic polymorphism   was 83.33%. Also, the results of Spearman correlation for markers the number of days to flowering indicated that Ppd-H1 marker has the most significant negative correlation with days to flowering  that prefigures the dominant allele role of this marker to reduce the number of days to flowering. Generally, the results of this research showed that there is a high genetic and phenotypic variation for specific markers that affected flowering time in barley. Also, genotypes with dominant allele of Ppd-H1 (9bp, deletion) compared to other genotypes show earlier flowering in response to the condition of long days, that it is an important feature for selection of superior genotypes in response to the stress conditions at the end of season.