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Title: Arabinoxylan content of hard winter and spring wheats of the U.S. Pacific Northwest

Author
item Morris, Craig
item LI, SHUOBI - NW A&F UNIVERSITY
item Bettge, Arthur
item KING, GARRISON - WASHINGTON STATE U
item Garland-Campbell, Kimberly
item GILL, KULVINDAR - WASHINGTON STATE U

Submitted to: Wheat Genetics International Symposium Proceedings
Publication Type: Proceedings
Publication Acceptance Date: 5/26/2008
Publication Date: 6/1/2009
Citation: Morris, C.F., Li, S., Bettge, A.D., King, G.E., Garland Campbell, K.A., Gill, K.S. 2009. Arabinoxylan content of hard winter and spring wheats of the U.S. Pacific Northwest. Wheat Genetics International Symposium Proceedings, 2:542-526.

Interpretive Summary: Arabinoxylans are an important group of non-starch polysaccharides present in wheat grain. Also known as pentosans, these heteromorphic, large polymers play an important role in end-use quality, primarily through their interaction with water and ability to cross link other arabinoxylan molecules and proteins. Previous work (Finnie et al. 2006) found that significant genetic differences were present among soft white winter and soft white spring wheat cultivars and breeding lines in the U.S. Pacific Northwest. The present paper describes the arabinoxylan content of hard winter and hard spring wheats from this same region.

Technical Abstract: The development of high quality wheat (Triticum aestivum L.) cultivars depends on a thorough understanding of the genetic and environmental influences on the constituents of grain. Arabinoxylans are important albeit quantitatively minor constituents of wheat grain; they can interact with large weight ratios of water and participate in oxidative cross-linking and gel formation. In this study, 26 hard winter and 25 hard spring wheat genotypes from breeding programs in the U.S. Pacific Northwest were analyzed for water-soluble and total arabinoxylan content. Each genotype was grown in three environments. There were significant differences among water-soluble (WS-AX) and total (TO-AX) arabinoxylan contents (G, E, and G*E model R2s 0.64-0.96). WS-AX genotype mean content ranged about 2-fold (0.39 to 0.81% for winter, and 0.48 to 0.92% for spring genotypes). TO-AX genotype mean content ranged from 3.1 to 4.0% for winter and 3.9 to 4.7% for spring genotypes. Type III SS F-ratios for ‘genotype’ were highly significant (P<0.0001) for both AX fractions of both winter and spring genotypes. ‘Hollis’ spring wheat had the highest WS-AX content and ‘WQL9HALP’ spring wheat (a hard NIL to ‘Alpowa’) had the highest TO-AX content. Repeatability estimates were 0.71 and 0.89 for WS-AX, winter and spring; and 0.30 and 0.62 for TO-AX, winter and spring genotypes, respectively. These preliminary results indicate that there is sufficient repeatable genetic variation to improve wheat cultivars for AX contents.