Barley (Hordeum vulgare L.) is one of the most important cereal crops in Kenya and the world’s fourth most important cereal grown mainly for fodder and beer production. Major constraints to high yield in barley include pests, diseases, changing climatic conditions, land fragmentation and most importantly lodging which causes yield losses of up to 60% and hence reduced grain yield per unit area due to shading of crop which results in reduced grain size. Kenyan varieties are prone to lodging which inevitably translates into severe yield losses that constrain farmers’ earnings hence the need to use mutation breeding to create genetic variability and develop lodging resistant lines. Barley s
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