Quality analysis in winter wheat varieties grown in Norway: Investigating quality differences among winter wheat cultivars and impact of environmental factors

Abstract

Bread making quality is one the desirable goals to be met by wheat breeders and growers; however, this bread making quality is the determined by both genetic and environmental factors. Quality variation occurs in winter wheat cultivars due to high and frequent precipitation (P) and fluctuating daily mean temperature (DMT) during the grain-filling period, which leads to huge economic loss by downgrading of wheat from food to feed as well as yield losses. In the last few years wheat production in Norway has been greatly affected due to loss of quality because of wet and persistent rainy weather conditions as well as fluctuating temperature during the grain-filling periods. In Norway, spring wheat is the main wheat production, but winter wheat counts for a substantial proportion in some seasons, and are often favored due to higher yield potential. While there are many studies conducted on Norwegian spring wheat, studies on winter wheat are scarce. The objectives of this study is thus to investigate genetic variation between winter wheat cultivars and to study the influence of weather conditions during grain-filling period on quality parameters. The study used two kinds of materials: Material 1 includes data obtained from field trials included in the official variety-testing program performed by Bioforsk; The Norwegian Institute for Agricultural and Environment Research and Arable Crop Division. These data were analyzed for quality by IPV-NMBU (Norges Miljø-og Biovitenskapelige Universitet/Norwegian University of life Science- Department of Plant Science) and Norwegian Institute of Food, Fisheries and Aquaculture Research (Nofima) from 2005 to 2013. Material 2 includes data collected from Østfold and Vollebekk experimental field trials in 2013 where new promising varieties were included. These data were analyzed for quality at Vollebekk and Nofima. Weather data obtained from Bioforsk (http://lmt.bioforsk.no/) was collected and used for calculations of daily mean temperature and precipitation during the 4 sub-phases during grain filling. These data were used to study environmental influences on variations among cultivars and locations. This study found significant variations among cultivars in material 1. The study revealed that Bjørke was the best in all the quality parameters used, the data further showed that Olivin exhibited higher gluten strength compared to Magnifik and Mjølner. Temperature during sub-phase 2 and 3 explained 23.6 % to 27.9 % variation in gluten strength among cultivars. Besides, significant negative correlation was also detected between falling number (FN) and precipitation during sub-phase 4 of the grain-filling period. Higher SDS sedimentation volume and SSDS values among the newer varieties in material 2, Skagen, Akratos and Matrix, revealed values suggesting higher gluten strength. Olivin have also showed higher protein content as well as strong gluten strength in material 2 as well.