ABSTRACT
Barley is the world’s fourth major cereal crop in acreage and production, surpassed by wheat, maize, and rice (1). Formerly the third founder cereal of Old World Neolithic agriculture after einkorn and emmer wheats (2-4), barley has gradually developed a diverse and unique niche of its own, with continued prominence in today’s agriculture. Its domestication occurred in the Fertile Crescent about 10,000 years ago from brittle, tworowed forms, bearing similarity to Hordeum spontaneum (4), which is considered to be the wild ancestor of cultivated barley, Hordeum vulgare L. (2,5). The primary center of diversity in Turkey, Jordan, Syria, Iraq, and Iran and a secondary center in Ethiopia are believed to harbor many wild species of barley (6), constituting, along with other wild species, about 30 species in the genus Hordeum (7).
