| Summary: | Barley is one of the most important cereal crops in the world and a better understanding of the factors that regulates the nutrient content in the grain is of high interest. The industrial breeding during the last century has led to bigger yield but possibly a decrease in nutrient content. In wheat, the NAM-B1 gene is a well-studied gene that affects the grain protein and micronutrient content. Two orthologue genes in barley HvNAM-1 and HvNAM-2 are candidate genes to play a similar role in the barley senescence process. I have looked for a correlation between the diversity in the HvNAM-2 gene and nutrient content in 37 Nordic barley accessions. The samples were sequenced and then aligned and analyzed for variation. I found three haplotypes which were compared in nutrient content and in micronutrient content. No significant difference between the haplotypes was found, which can be due to small sample size or that no correlation exists between the grain protein content and the HvNAM-2 gene variation. Significant correlation was however found between the nitrogen content and the micronutrient contents that indicate that the pathways of all the nutrients’ mobilizations are tightly coupled. For future research a bigger number of accessions, preferably at least 100, need to be analyzed to be able to give any conclusions. The molecular mechanisms in the cells during senescence also need further investigation.
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