Open Access

ARTICLE

Evaluation of Some Egyptian Barley Cultivars Resistance to Foliar Fungal Diseases in Drought-Prone Environments under Field Conditions

Sally Negm¹, Badwy Mohdly², Motrih Al-Mutiry³, Wael Shehata⁴, Karima Ahmed⁵, Mohamed Abou-Zeid^2,*, Rana Elessawy⁶, Ashgan Abdel-Azim⁵, Amr Abdel-Fattah², Amani Omar Abuzaid⁷, Enas A. Almanzalawi⁷, Tahani M. Alqahtani⁷, Shouaa A. Alrobaish⁸, Diaa Abd El Moneim⁹, Ahmed M. Abbas^10,11, Mohammed O. Alshaharni¹⁰, Huda Alghamdi¹⁰, Shaimaa G. Salama¹², Kairy Amer⁵

1 Basic Sciences and Their Applications Unit, Health Specialties, Applied College, King Khalid, 62529, Saudi Arabia
2 Plant Pathology Research Institute, Agriculture Research Center, Giza, 12619, Egypt
3 Department of Geography and Environmental Sustainability, College of Humanities and Social Sciences, Princess Nourah bint Abdulrahman University, Riyadh, 11671, Saudi Arabia
4 Department of Agricultural Biotechnology, College of Agriculture and Food Sciences, King Faisal University, Al-Ahsa, 31982, Saudi Arabia
5 Field Crops Research Institute, Agriculture Research Center, Giza, 12619, Egypt
6 Department of Plant Pathology, University of Florida, Gainesville, FL 32611-0180, USA
7 Department of Biological Sciences, Faculty of Science, King Abdulaziz University, Jeddah, 21589, Saudi Arabia
8 Department of Biology, College of Science, Qassim University, Buraydah, 52571, Saudi Arabia
9 Department of Plant Production (Genetic Branch), Faculty of Environmental Agricultural Sciences, Arish University, El-Arish, 45511, Egypt
10 Department of Biology, College of Science, King Khalid University, Abha, 61421, Saudi Arabia
11 Department of Botany and Microbiology, Faculty of Science, South Valley University, Qena, 83523, Egypt
12 Department of Botany and Microbiology, Faculty of Science, Damanhour University, Damanhour, 22511, Egypt

* Corresponding Author: Mohamed Abou-Zeid. Email:

(This article belongs to the Special Issue: Influence of Biotic and Abiotic Stresses Signals on Plants and their Performance at Different Environments)

Phyton-International Journal of Experimental Botany 2025, 94(2), 347-377. https://doi.org/10.32604/phyton.2025.057448

Received 18 August 2024; Accepted 10 December 2024; Issue published 06 March 2025

Abstract

Barley (Hordeum vulgare L.) is a significant global crop that thrives in various climatic and drought-stress conditions. Furthermore, increased drought intervals and more significant weather variability resulting from climate change can affect the severity of plant diseases. Therefore, two primary objectives of integrated disease management regarding climate change are identifying cultivars resistant to foliar diseases and understanding disease progression under abiotic stress. In the current study, we assessed the quantitative foliar disease resistance of 17 commercial barley cultivars under both normal and water stress conditions over two growing seasons (from 2020/21 to 2021/22). The findings demonstrated a reduced incidence of foliar fungal diseases (leaf rust, net blotch, and powdery mildew) under severe drought stress relative to standard irrigated field conditions. The barley cultivars (Giza 130, Giza 131, and Giza 133) demonstrated significant differences across all disease resistance indices. In addition, the study aimed to molecularly characterize 17 commercial barley varieties using single-cell DNA testing (SCoT) to identify genetic polymorphism and specific markers for each genotype. Eight SCoT primers were employed to investigate the genetic polymorphism among 17 barley varieties. Furthermore, these cultivars exhibited optimal performance for the majority of agricultural attributes examined, both under normal and water-stressed conditions.

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Keywords

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