Achieving sustainable cultivation of barley

This collection reviews advances in research on improving barley cultivation across the value chain. Part 1 reviews advances in understanding barley physiology in such areas as plant growth, grain development and plant response to abiotic stress. There is also a review of current developments in mapping the barley genome. Building on this foundation, the second part of the book summarises advances in breeding with chapters on breeding trial design as well as advances in molecular breeding techniques such as genome wide association studies (GWAS) and targeted induced lesions in genomes (TILLING). The book also shows how such techniques have been deployed to develop abiotic stress-resistant varieties. Part 3 looks further along the value chain at ways of optimising cultivation practices. There are chapters on good agricultural practices and post-harvest storage as well as fungal diseases and weeds integrated methods for their management. The final part of the book assesses current research on optimising barley for particular end uses such as malting, brewing and animal feed. With its breadth of coverage and expertise, this will be a standard reference for barley scientists working in universities and other research centres, governments and commercial companies as well as barley growers and processors. Professor Glen Fox is the Anheuser-Busch Endowed Professor of Malting and Brewing Science at the University of California, USA. Previously, he was a Senior Fellow at the University of Queensland, Australia. He has many years experience working with barley breeding programmes, and malting and brewing industries in Australia and overseas. With these companies, his worked focused on the influence of barley quality on malting and brewing quality. He is a Fellow of the Institute of Brewing and Distilling. Professor Fox has over 250 book chapters, journal articles and conference presentations. He has also supervised over 50 post-graduates students mostly in the area of barley and malt quality. His current research interests include digger deeper into barley, malt, wort composition on beer quality. Professor Chengdao Li is Director of the Western Barley Genetics Alliance, linking Murdoch University with the Department of Primary Industry and Regional Department. Professor Li is an internationally-renowned expert in barley breeding, having helped to develop new varieties such as Baudin which is widely seen as setting the benchmark in malting quality. Professor Li is a member of the International Barley Genetics Sequencing Consortium which has mapped the barley genome, and has published widely on barley genetics and breeding.