Effects of wild emmer introgression on hard winter wheat grain quality and use of the GlutoPeak to assess wheat quality characteristics

Abstract

Among the most widely grown cereal crops, bread wheat (Triticum aestivum L.) is a vital source of nutrients and calories for many people across the world. Due to its unique grain quality characteristics, wheat is among the most versatile crops, producing a vast range of products that vary widely in formulation and among cultures. Wheat grain quality characteristics have profound influence on end product type and quality. Progress in breeding hard winter wheat for quality is limited by the long growing season and the inverse relationship between grain yield and grain protein concentration. Wheat breeders are faced with the uniquely difficult task of finding effective methods to sustain and improve grain protein concentration without compromising yield, and without increasing externalized production costs for fertilizer. One approach is to introgress wild emmer, (Triticum turgidum L. subsp. dicoccoides) into bread wheat. As an ancestral relative to wheat, it contains genes that have potential to improve wheat quality. The focus of this research is to evaluate the effects of wild emmer introgression on both the agronomic traits and grain quality of hard winter wheat. Accessions of winter wheat were planted at four locations for two growing seasons. The 94 winter wheat accessions in the study have a theoretical genetic percentage of 25% T. dicoccoides. Using several testing procedures, including solvent retention capacities (SRC) and the GlutoPeak, quality characteristics were assessed for each accession in each growing environment. Protein concentration, gluten strength, and protein quality score were highly heritable among the accessions. Relationships between quality traits and GlutoPeak parameters were also explored to determine the utility of the GlutoPeak as an early generation quality testing method, and several parameters were found to have correlations with quality traits. Maximum torque time was found to be highly correlated with the results of a hybrid lactic acid-sodium dodecyl sulfate SRC, which yields a measure of gluten strength (r = 0.63, P < 0.001). Maximum torque was found to be highly correlated with grain protein concentration (r = 0.76, P < 0.001). This research complements previous research on the utilization of wild emmer to improve modern wheat and contributes to modern research on the applicability of the GlutoPeak for early generation quality evaluation.