title: Perspectives to breed for improved baking quality wheat varieties adapted to organic growing conditions.
abstract: Northwestern European consumers like their bread to be voluminous and easy to chew. These attributes require a raw material that is rich in protein with, among other characteristics, a suitable ratio between gliadins and glutenins. Achieving this is a challenge for organic growers, because they lack cultivars that can realise high protein concentrations under the relatively low and variable availability of nitrogen during the grain-filling phase common in organic farming. Relatively low protein content in wheat grains thus needs to be compensated by a high proportion of high-quality protein. Organic farming therefore needs cultivars with genes encoding for optimal levels of glutenins and gliadins, a maximum ability for nitrogen uptake, a large storage capacity of nitrogen in the biomass, an adequate balance between vegetative and reproductive growth, a high nitrogen translocation efficiency for the vegetative parts into the grains during grain filling and an efficient conversion of nitrogen into high-quality proteins. In this perspective paper the options to breed and grow such varieties are discussed.
authors.affiliation: Louis Bolk Institute, Hoofdstraat 24, NL-3972 LA Driebergen, The Netherlands. aart.osman@gmail.com
authors.forename: Aart M
authors.initials: AM
authors.lastname: Osman
authors.forename: Paul C
authors.initials: PC
authors.lastname: Struik
authors.forename: Edith T Lammerts
authors.initials: ET
authors.lastname: van Bueren
mesh_terms: D001692:Biological Transport; D018533:Biomass; D001939:Bread / Q000592:standards; D001947:Breeding / Q000592:standards*; D005060:Europe; D018506:Gene Expression Regulation, Plant; D014644:Genetic Variation; D009584:Nitrogen / Q000378:metabolism; D058871:Organic Agriculture / Q000379:methods*; D010940:Plant Proteins / Q000235:genetics / Q000378:metabolism; D011786:Quality Control; D012677:Sensation; D014908:Triticum / Q000235:genetics* / Q000502:physiology*
chemical_list: D010940:Plant Proteins; D009584:Nitrogen