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From ancient to old and modern durum wheat varieties: interaction among cultivar traits, management, and technological quality
Author(s) -
Mefleh Marina,
Conte Paola,
Fadda Costantino,
Giunta Francesco,
Piga Antonio,
Hassoun Georges,
Motzo Rosella
Publication year - 2018
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.9388
Subject(s) - gluten , agronomy , cultivar , biology , trait , quality (philosophy) , glutenin , falling number , grain quality , microbiology and biotechnology , food science , philosophy , biochemistry , epistemology , protein subunit , computer science , gene , programming language
Following the boom in durum wheat breeding, ancient wheat disappeared from the human diet and old durum wheat varieties were replaced by what is believed to be their better versions: higher yielding modern varieties grown in high‐input systems. Breeders have worked intensely ever since to improve the quality of durum wheat traits – mainly gluten subunit alleles – to obtain superior technological quality in the main durum wheat end products (first pasta and then bread) but conflicts about predicting their quality still exist. This is because quality is neither governed by one trait alone nor conditioned by a single controllable factor. This review discusses the evolution of wheat varieties from ancient to old, and then modern durum wheat in terms of agronomy, genetics, technological, and end‐product qualities. Environmental effects will not be discussed. Moving from ancient to modern durum wheat varieties, grain yield increased, grain protein concentration decreased, and gluten strength and dough toughness improved, ameliorating the quality of pasta but decreasing the durum wheat versatility. © 2018 Society of Chemical Industry