Variation in monoculture and in mixture for grain yield and other characters in spring barley

Fourteen north-west European spring barley cultivars were grown alone or in binary mixtures sampled according to a partial diallel scheme. On the basis of the association between cultivars in mixture and monoculture, three groups of characters were distinguished. Group A characters, plant height, ear weight/tiller, grain yield/tiller, number of grains/tiller and 1000-grain weight, showed strong positive associations between performance in monoculture and mixture. Group B characters, number of tillers/plant and harvest index showed incomplete positive associations, while for group C characters, dry matter/plant, ear weight/plant, grain yield/plant and number of grains/plant, associations were weak or non-existent. Compound characters in group C showed less genetic variation in monoculture and lower general competitive effects in mixture than component characters in groups A or B. These results clearly indicate that while selection for grain yield and other characters on a per plant basis (group C characters) is confounded by intergenotypic competition, characters such as the yield components number of grains/tiller and 1000-grain weight (group A characters) are hardly affected in this range of cultivars. Selection for opposing group A characters may start in the F₂ generation, while any selection for group B and C characters should be delayed until later generations. The merits of indirect selection for yield using visual assessment of yield components are discussed. Separate analyses obtained by the inclusion of spring wheat cv. Timmo in monoculture and in the set of mixtures indicated that the use of spring wheat plants to minimise intergenotypic competition ranges from superfluous (group A characters) to useless (group C characters). A large degree of mixture advantage and the lack of complementary dominance and suppression between competitor and associate was attributed to the relatively low density of plants in the experiment which, though suitable for single plant selection, is not typical of normal seed rates for cropping.