End-use quality of CIMMYT-derived soft kernel durum wheat germplasm. II. Dough strength and pan bread quality

Authors: BOEHM JR., J - Washington State University; IBBA, M.I. - Washington State University; Kiszonas, Alecia; Morris, Craig

Submitted to: Crop Science
Publication Type: Peer Reviewed Journal
Publication Acceptance Date: 1/12/2017
Publication Date: 6/16/2017
Citation: Boehm Jr., J.D., Ibba, M., Kiszonas, A., Morris, C.F. 2017. End-use quality of CIMMYT-derived soft kernel durum wheat germplasm. II. Dough strenth and pan bread quality. Crop Science. 57:1485-1494.

Interpretive Summary: Durum wheat is mostly grown in populous, arid regions of the world threatened with food security issues but unfortunately durum grain is difficult to process and thus has limited culinary end-uses. New soft durum grain is able to be processed like common wheat grain to produce soft durum flour, not semolina, allowing for the production of new flour-based food products such as bread which holds great promise to improve food security in regions of the world where durum is grown. “Soft Durum” is a brand-new market class of wheat that features a soft kernel texture which conveys unexplored end-use quality traits. Understanding the behavioral characteristics of soft durum doughs and flours and determining new culinary end-uses is an exciting prospect and thus the primary aim of this study was to compare the end-use quality traits of soft durum dough and flour to traditional hard (bread) wheat dough and flour end-use quality parameters. In a previous study 46 new soft durum lines, derived from CIMMYT’s 44th International Durum Yield Nursery, were developed and grown in replicated field plots in two Washington environments. Harvested samples were subsequently analyzed at the Western Wheat Quality Lab in Pullman, WA, and it was found that some of the soft durum lines produced loaf volumes greater than 800 cm-3 but that the bread making quality of soft durum wheat is highly dependent on combining favorable alleles for gluten strength, dough mixing properties, and bread making quality. Flours produced from soft kernel durum wheat behave similarly to hexaploid bread wheat flours in the sense that the common means of measuring gluten strength and dough mixing characteristics held true for the soft durum lines evaluated in the present study and similarly, so did many of the commonly encountered relationships among hard hexaploid wheat end-use quality traits.

Technical Abstract: Durum wheat (Triticum turgidum ssp. durum) is considered unsuitable for the majority of commercial bread production because its weak gluten strength combined with flour particle size and flour starch damage after milling are not commensurate with hexaploid wheat flours. Recently a new durum cultivar with soft kernel texture, cv. Soft Svevo, was developed by the Ph1b-mediated homoeologous transfer of the Puroindoline genes at the Ha locus from the D genome of T. aestivum. The objective of this research was to evaluate the bread making potential of soft kernel durum germplasm developed from crossing Soft Svevo to selected entries of the CIMMYT 44th International Durum Yield Nursery. Forty-six F2:5 soft durum full and half-sib lines were grown in replicated plots in two locations. Grain samples were evaluated for flour protein quality, dough mixing and strength characteristics, and bread baking. Significant differences (p<0.05) were detected among lines for flour SDS sedimentation volume (3.2 – 12.6 mL g-1), SRC lactic acid (63.2 – 112.6 g 100 g-1), Mixograph water absorption (59.8 – 64.5 g 100 g-1), peak height (37.1 – 52.8), peak width (55.4 – 125.2), and loaf volume (629 – 864 cm-3). These results indicate that the bread making potential of soft durum can be improved if hard durum cultivars with favorable alleles for protein quality, dough strength, and bread making are chosen as crossing parents with Soft Svevo, and by extension, other soft kernel durum wheat germplasm.