Breeding for improved gluten strength and yellow pigment content in winter durum wheat

Gyula Vida, László Szunics, Ottó Veisz, Mónika Cséplő

Abstract: The cultivation of winter durum wheat in Hungary dates back only a few decades. Under the climatic conditions of the country, mainly varieties of winter-types are grown, which are able to achieve higher yield than that of spring-types. It is also an important aspect for the players in the cereal sector to grow varieties that meet the quality requirements of the pasta industry. The strength of the gluten and the yellow pigment content are extremely important technological quality characteristics of durum wheat. In durum wheat breeding programs, the former is often determined by measuring the gluten index, while the latter one is estimated by the Minolta b* value. During the decades following the start of the breeding program, both testing methods, were successfully introduced and used in selection aimed at improvement of technological quality at Martonvásár. In this publication, we present the results achieved by using genetically diverse set of varieties, as well as the results of the durum wheat-breeding program. With our experiments, we could prove that, based on the repeatability (h2), both traits are genetically well defined (gluten index: 0.949; Minolta b*: 0.978), and a large degree of genetic variability can be observed in the winter and facultative gene pool. As a result of successful selection, the technological quality of winter durum wheat varieties registered in recent years has become competitive with spring ones.

Keywords: genetic improvement; Gluten index; Minolta b; selection; technological quality; Triticum turgidum ssp. durum

Date published: 2022-12-16