Triticale development in Algeria: genetic gains through decades.

Algeria started working on triticale since the late seventies, it was first as a scientific curiosity (1974-1980), the production of this crop began in the early eighties and expanded well for a decade (10.000ha) then decreased for another decade due to lack of subsidies and serious interest from decision makers putting all their effort in wheat production which is the predominant crop in the country. Since the 1990s up to date, it is developing again mainly based on feed market requirements (20.500ha in 2001) and a better consideration by stakeholders. Triticale is now developed by the informal seed system. Triticale is grown in Algeria under a wide range of soil and climatic conditions, including dryland and marginal soils. Under high input and rainfall environments, the best triticale cultivars have comparable grain yield with wheat but slightly lower to barley. This advantage is larger under dry conditions. Our study was dealing with an evaluation of the progress made in time since their introduction and selection of triticale varieties. The study was conducted on twenty five varieties and advanced lines, selected in the different phases of triticale development, during the three last seasons (2009 - 2012) in two contrasting regions (semi arid and high input environment) showed very interesting results and a linear improvement in grain yield and its components, and also in the feeding quality traits. The improvement was apparent in both sites; although result data was higher in number in the high input environment, the increase rate was larger in the semi arid area of study. In the favorable area, grain yield increased from 2.94t/ha for the varieties developed in the early phase (late 1970s), to 3.98t/ha for the varieties released in the second phase (1990s) up to 5.45t/ha for the latest varieties developed in the 2000s. Grain yield increased in the dry area from 2.42t/ha to 4.92t/ha. The trend is almost the same for all yield components and even for forage quality traits.