ASSOCIATIONS OF THE WAXY (WX) GENE WITH MALTING QUALITY CHARACTERS INRANDOM INBRED LINES OF BARLEY

Inbred lines were developed from a cross between a waxy and a non-waxy barley, enabling populations with and without the waxy gene to be com pared. For all quality characters measured, both waxy and non-waxy typ es demonstrated wide ranges and waxy lines with fairly high levels of thousand corn weight and hot water extract were obtained. Over three s easons, milling energies were always significantly higher in waxy comp ared with non-waxy lines and, in waxy types, milling energy was closel y related to rate of cell wall modification during malting. In a seaso n, where grain weights were fairly high, the mean extract of the waxy population was significantly lower than that of the non-waxy and it wa s suggested that large grain could be disadvantageous in waxy lines du e to their slow rate of modification.