Chromosomal Location of Gene for Earbranching of Barley Natural Mutant ＂f151＂ Using SSR Markers

f151, a natural earbranching mutant from naked barley landrace, has better structural characteristics of spike and is thought to be a very valuable germplasm to high-yield breeding of barley. Genetic analysis of earbranching trait is carried out in the populations of F1, F2, B1 and B2 which are produced by crossing including reciprocals and backcrossing between f151 and different barley varieties. The results show that earbranching trait of f151 is controlled by one pair of recessive genes without cytoplasm effects. The linkage between the earbranching gene and the SSR marker HVM40 on the short arm of chromosome 4H is found by bulked segregated analysis using SSR markers based on the F2 population of the hybrid "f151×Gateway". It can be inferred from the recombinant value of 0.087 between the gene and HVM40 that this gene is located on 4HS. The gene is temporarily named "mb".