• Introduction
• Background
• The team
• The barley collection
• Starch characterisation
• Gene discovery
• Fast-track barley breeding
• Our approach in wheat
• Contacts and funding

The barley Collection

We have a collection of about 15 different barley mutants with altered amounts and properties of starch in the seed. These come from germplasm collections across the world. In many cases the seeds of these starch mutants are shrunken: this phenotype has been helpful to us in forming our collection.

Many of the mutants also have starches with altered granule shape and size and/or iodine staining properties: these characteristics have also been helpful to us in forming our collection. Note in the normal barley the presence of large A-type granules and small B-type granules, and the blue staining with iodine: