Comparison of marker systems and construction of a core collection in a pedigree of European spring barley.

Based on data in four publications describing European barley cultivars, similarities between pairs of cultivars were calculated using individual markers and combinations of markers. These markers included 19 isoenzyme patterns, Giemsa C-banding variants of each of the seven chromosomes, hordein polypeptide patterns, DDT susceptibility type, and three morphological descriptors. The rank correlation between the coefficients of parentage and marker-based similarities is low; the highest single marker correlation is with Est-1, 0.41, and the highest correlation with a combination of markers is 0.58. Giemsa C-banding patterns score rather high, as opposed to the three morphological characters that score very low. Selection of core collections using the effective-number-of-origin-lines theory is successful. The average number of types found in a core collection of cultivars of given size is always considerably larger than a random set of the same size. The core collection approaches the maximum possible number of types.