BARLEY YIELD RESPONSE TO AGROCLIMATIC INDICES VARIABILITY

This study analyses the barley genotype's response to different agro-climatic indices used to characterize the effect of genotype and environment on yield potential, providing an overview of different six and two rows winter barley genotypes (varieties and lines). The variability was obtained under two growing conditions (CGC1 - conventional growing condition and LSC2 - late sowing condition) in southeast Romania, and the agro-climatic indices were evaluated based on the number of days from sowing to heading and from heading to physiological maturity. The relationship between barley grain yield data under CGC1 and LSC2 and seven agro-climatic indices was analyzed. According to growing degree days (GDD), bright sunshine hours (BSH), heliothermal units (HTU), photothermal index (PTI), heat use efficiency (HUE), rainfalls sum (RS), rainfall index (RI), barley genotypes had different yield potential and agro-climatic indices. A high level of yield will always be obtained by the six-row and two-row winter barley which efficiently use the heat, this agro-climatic index (HUE) being positively correlated under both studied conditions with yield.