Abstract
It is important to know the cultivation origins for the improvement of crops. In barley, non-brittle rachis, six-rowed spike, naked caryopsis, and spring growth habit are given as key characters. Non-brittle rachis brought the harvest efficiency improvement, six-rowed spike increased the number of grains, naked caryopsis facilitated for food processing, and spring growth habit allowed the expansion of the cultivation region in the world. Because these characters are inherited under simple Mendelian factors as clarified by the excellent works in the last century, although the gene products are unknown, one can challenge positional cloning today. As common resources, public databases of barley ESTs, EST maps, and BAC libraries are available. I would like to talk about the non-brittle rachis and six-rowed spike genes.
