Quality of triticale cultivars suitable for growing and bread-making in northern conditions

Rye and wheat are the major cereals consumed by people of northern and eastern Europe. However, it has become important to widen the use of cereal products. Attempts have been done to adapt western triticale cultivars to northern growing conditions. Serious investigations of triticale bread commenced as late as in 1997 in Estonia. The first attempts to grow the triticale cultivars Modus, Dato, Presto, SV 92280 in Estonian conditions have been successful. They are productive, resistant to leaf and stem rust, powdery mildew, and with good grain quality. The aim of this work was to investigate the bread-making quality of western winter triticale cultivars grown in Estonia. The following grain quality parameters were estimated: grain protein content, SDS-sedimentation, falling number, water absorption, bread loaf volume. HMW glutenin subunit composition, which was used to predict the baking quality, was determined by sodium dodecyl sulphate– polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis (SDS–PAGE). Seven different alleles were revealed in the set of 12 triticale cultivars. The best cultivars had HMW glutenin subunits 2 ∗ encoded by the Glu-A1 locus, 7+26 and 7+19 encoded by the Glu-B1 locus.