The Development of Tritordeum: A Novel Cereal for Food Processing

Hexaploid tritordeum is the fertile amphiploid (2n=6x=42,AABBHchHch) between Hordeum chilense and durum wheat. There is huge genetic variability available for breeding this new species obtained after the synthesis of hundreds of different amphiploids. Morphologically and agronomically, tritordeum is similar to wheat. Tritordeums exhibit an uptake nitrogen system with a higher affinity for nitrate than their wheat parent. Similarly, tritordeum has a higher water use efficiency than wheat. The rheological and baking characteristics of hexaploid tritordeum flour are also quite similar to those of bread wheat, indicating that the Hchgenome can at least partially substitute for the D genome. The quality of tritordeum flour is determined by both the wheat and the barley seed storage proteins. The H. chilense seed storage proteins show a high degree of variation, which could be useful as an additional source of genetic variability for wheat processing (pasta and bread) quality by means of using tritordeum as the bridge species. Similarly, the tritordeum endosperm protein composition has been modified through transformation and by chromosome manipulation with glutenin genes from wheat.