Barley (Hordeum vulgare L.), the crop of present era being versatile in nature, is grown worldwide under various agro climatic situations. It flourishes well under limited resources of irrigation and fertilizer. Barley thrives better yield in problematic situation and climatic change, like rainfed, diaraland, marginal area of river & saline and alkaline soil. The nutritional and medicinal importance of this crop is of permanent value. The second most important use of barley is for malt, which is used mostly in beer, but also in hard liquors, malted milk and flavorings in a variety of foods. Barley malt can be added to many food stuffs such as biscuits, bread, cakes and desserts. Brewer's and distiller grains and sprouts from malting barley also have desirable protein content for animal diets (Akar et al., 2004). The crossabilities of 18 genetically diverse varieties of hulled/hulless barley (Hordeum vulgare L.), namely NDB-943, NDB-1173, NDB-1057, NDB-1618, NDB-1445, NDB-3, NDB-1173, RD-2768, RD 2909, RD-2899, HUB-240, KB-1319, BH-999, DWRB-137, HUB-114, RD-2794, Karan 16, BHS 352 and Dolma collected from various coordinating unit, were selected for building up the experimental materials. A pair of 18 different barley varieties involved in three groups of Hulled x Hulled, Hulled x Hulless and Hulless x Hulless were crossed during winter 2015-16 and 2016-17 respectively, at Research Farm of NDUA&T, Kumarganj, Faizabad. The experimental materials used for the present investigation comprised of the parents (P1 and P2), the F1’s, and the back crosses (B1 and B2) seeds with both the parents of each of the fifteen crosses. The whole experiment was conducted in normal fertile soil (pH 8.4). The row to row and plant to plant distance was kept 50 cm and 15cm respectively. The total number of seeds set and total number of florets pollinated were counted. The seed setting in different crosses was thus influenced by genotype(s) of the parents themselves, and it is suggested that hulless barley may be used as female for better seed setting. Thus, it is suggested that (1) desirable genotype(s) expressing high number of seed setting may be further mated inter se in order to enlarge the genetic variability and (2) The genotypes showing high value of crossability may prove their worthy as best combiners with other genotypes.

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