HETEROSIS IN BARLEY

Abstract

HE cultivated varieties of barley have a low chromosome number T (2n = 14). They are autogamous and belong among the oldest of inan's domes tic plants. In thousands of generations the cultivated species have been closely dependent upon the activities of man, and it seems probable that the selection process in barley has been different from that in wild species. Such differences between wild species and old domestic ones may conceivably have influenced the phylogeny and, thus. the whole set-up of genes within the species.