Scots scientists scour barley strains for genetic benefits

SCOTTISH cereal plant breeders are checking up on some of the country's oldest strains of barley to see if they have any useful genes that can be used in more modern cultivars.

Bere barley is a Scottish landrace form of barley which is nowadays only grown in a few parts of the north and west of the country, such as Orkney, Shetland and the Hebrides. It is a spring six-row barley that is quite unusual in a UK context and the overall acreage grown is quite small.

Now work at the Scottish Crop Research Institute, at Invergowrie, under barley plant geneticist Dr Luke Ramsay, is looking at possible benefits from bere's background.

"We have genetically characterised a large number of bere samples and compared them to what we now grow to see how different they are and whether there's any useful genes that we can use."

"Bere barley is traditionally grown on poor soil, for example the Machair of the Hebrides, and has been grown on this type of land since before the start of the use of interventions, like adding lime to the soil. This means there may have traits that would be useful in nutrient use efficiency in breeding new varieties.

"However, in the Hebrides there are only some very small areas of bere barley left. In some instances it literally is a patch growing in the garden and we need to preserve more of the bere varieties if we are going to be able to use them in breeding programmes.

"We need the people who are growing these varieties to keep on growing them as a resource for the future," he added.

As well as identifying important useful traits in bere barley, the research has also found important differences and links between varieties found in Scotland, Scandinavia and the Faroe Islands which can help indicate the possible movement of early settlers.

The varieties in each of the three islands groups; Orkney, Shetland and the Hebrides; are distinct from each other and are also different from Scandinavian varieties indicating Viking settlers did not bring the barley with them to Scotland.

There were similarities, however, between the Shetland and Faroes varieties, indicating that early settlers may have taken the barley with them from one place to another as they moved further afield.

Dr Ramsay added that preservation of bere barley could also prove useful in health terms as barley is one of the few foodstuffs that have officially recognised health-giving properties due to its beta-glucan content.

"It was one of the staple crops before the introduction of oats and in Orkney you can still find bere bannocks produced today so there could also be health benefits from its wider use," he said.

There are other implications from the SCRI work and one of those is the preservation of these rare native barleys.

"They make a significant contribution to maintaining Scotland's natural biodiversity and we are keen to ensure they will not disappear altogether," said Dr Joanne Russell, who leads biodiversity work in the Genetics programme.

SCRI worked with SASA PhD student Cathy Southworth to collect as many bere barley samples as possible from sites across the Scottish islands, including Orkney, Shetland and the Hebrides, as well as the mainland.