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Relationships between disease control, green leaf duration, grain quality and the production of alcohol from winter wheat
Author(s) -
Watson Andrew M,
Hare Martin C,
Kettlewell Peter S,
Brosnan James M,
Agu Reginald C
Publication year - 2010
Publication title -
journal of the science of food and agriculture
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.782
H-Index - 142
eISSN - 1097-0010
pISSN - 0022-5142
DOI - 10.1002/jsfa.4128
Subject(s) - agronomy , winter wheat , production (economics) , quality (philosophy) , biology , economics , physics , quantum mechanics , macroeconomics
BACKGROUND: Since demand for distilling wheat is expected to increase rapidly as a result of the development of the bioethanol industry, efficient production will become of increasing importance. Achieving this will require an understanding of the agronomic factors that influence both grain yield and alcohol yield. Therefore five field experiments using the winter distilling wheat variety Glasgow were conducted over three seasons (2006–2007, 2007–2008 and 2008–2009) to study the relationships between foliar disease and alcohol yield. RESULTS: There was a significant relationship between alcohol yield and the severity of the disease septoria leaf blotch ( Septoria tritici ), which was present in the experiments from natural infection. Retention of green flag leaf area as affected by disease control following fungicide application was also shown to be important for achieving high alcohol yields. Measurements of grain quality showed that high thousand‐grain weight and low grain protein concentration were significantly related to increased alcohol yield. CONCLUSION: The experiments showed the importance of disease management to protect alcohol yields in the distilling wheat crop. Fungicides that provide greater disease control and improved green leaf retention are likely to be beneficial to alcohol yield. Copyright © 2010 Society of Chemical Industry