Abstract:Colored barley is the type of precious barley germplasm resources. The color of its seeds is caused by the deposition of different pigments in pericarp and aleurone layer. Colored barley seeds contain many kinds of nutrient components such as natural pigments, essential amino acids, vitamins and mineral elements including calcium, selenium etc., which play important physiological roles in human health. The seeds of colored barley can be used as raw materials for producing nutraceuticals, food additivies for the food processing industry, and they can also be used for manufacturing suntan cream and hair coloring agent in cosmetics industry. The colors of barley seeds are mainly blue, purple and black because of various components and contents of anthocyanins in them. Black barley is controlled by a dominant gene Blp located on chromosome 1HL; purple barley is controlled by two complementary dominant genes, Pre1 and Pre2, both of them located on chromosome 2HL; blue barley is controlled by five complementary dominant genes, Blx1、Blx2、Blx3、Blx4 and Blx5, among of them Blx1、Blx3 and Blx4 located on chromosome 4HL, Blx2 and Blx5 located on chromosome 7HL.