Early‐Generation Selection for Flour‐Absorption and Dough Mixing Properties in a Lemhi ✕ Thatcher Wheat Cross 1

?; C flour and bread production methods, coupled with a decreasing acreage of hard red spring wheat, Triticum aestivum L., have made improved milling and baking quality a primary objective of the Montana hard red spring wheat improvement program. Evaluation of hybrid populations for milling and baking uality has been a common practice with plant breeders or years, but different evaluation procedures have been proposed and used by many workers. In the past, breeders often have been confused and dismayed over the seemingly contradictory definitions of the elusive term "quality", which must be defined in relation to the use made of a given wheat sample. Cooperation between breeders, cereal technologists, and processors in recent years has resulted in much clearer definition of the qualities desired in the various wheat classes and wheat regions. New techniques and equipment are now available for accurately evaluating small samples of wheat for some