ABSTRACT
Scandinavian spring barley production suffers from sprouting damage in rainy and wet autumns. Seed dormancy gives protection against this damage and is a wanted character in nordic feed-barley varieties. In breeding work it is of importance to start early generation selection for this character. Mass selection of dormant seed from bulk populations giving sub-populations with increased resistance to sprouting is described, and also a simplified method of standardizing water amount to the germination medium giving a coefficient of variation in water content at a level of CV=1.5%, and a coefficient of variation in germination at a level of CV=10%. Drying the samples and stopping germination makes it possible to handle large numbers of samples. Fairly good genetic advance by selection as early as in F2 are shown.
