Genotypic and environmental variation of bread and durum wheat proteins and antioxidant compounds

Abstract

The objective of this study was to determine effects of the genotype, environment and genotype by environment interaction on the several quality and antioxidant-related traits of six bread and durum wheat genotypes bred at the Maize Research Institute, Serbia. Trials were conducted in two successive years under contrasting temperature and moisture conditions during spring growing season, thus, the environmental effects consider the influence of "hot/dry" and "cool/wet" season. On average, 1000-seed weight, protein, wet gluten and yellow pigment contents were higher in durum than in bread wheat in both years. On the other hand, the average content of alpha-, beta+gamma- and total tocopherols was higher in bread than in durum wheat. The content of total phenolics and antioxidant capacity was similar for both species. Higher temperatures and lower precipitations resulted in larger kernels, higher total protein content, as well as gluten, but negatively influenced antioxidant properties, total phenolics and lipid soluble antioxidants content. Based on ANOVA (analysis of variance), all sources of variation for each of the nine quality- and antioxidant-related traits were highly significant (P lt 0.01). Average variances of studied traits associated with environmental factors were generally larger (41.6%) than those for genetic factors (23.9%) and genotype by environmental interaction effects (33.6%). Especially high environment variance was recorded for antioxidant capacity. Both, genotype and genotype by environment interaction had significant effects on wet gluten and lipid soluble antioxidants.