Abstract only

Since the fall of 1993, Institute of Genetics and Breeding of Academy of Sciences of the Azerbaijan Republic has been involved in the network of winter wheat improvement of the CIMMYT/ICARDA program. Importance ofthis cooperation is associated with the urgent need to develop new bread wheat varieties, which combine high yield with high adaptation to the local environments. From this standpoint, the major objective of the study was to evaluate international nurseries provided by CIMMYT/ICARDA for their biochemical traits and select the best germplasm for its further utilization in breeding. The importance of the present research is emphasized by the fact that such diverse and completely new for the local researchers bread wheat germplasm was for the first time studied under extreme conditions of Absheron. AII entries have been screened based on the traits important for adaptation and breeding. We ave evaluated a great number of the bread wheat entries (about450) from the CIMMYT/ ICARDA nurseries for the biochemical traits including grain protein content, and content of lysine and triptophane in grain protein. Varieties from the following countries were used as material for the present study: Canada, Turkey, America, Russia, Syria, Mexico, Romania, China, Azerbaijan, Bulgaria, Iran and Hungary. The study material comprised mainly the following bread wheat species: Triticum aestivum: graecum, erythrospermum, lutescense, milturum, alborubrum andferrugineum. Varieties released in Azerbaijan were used as checks. The biochemical analyses produced the following results. Grain protein content of the check variety was 15%, while the portions of lysine and triptophane in protein were 1.7% and 1.8%, respectively. For most of the analyzed entries the value ofthe grain protein content was as high as 16%, while the other showed values close to or lower than that of the check variety. The content of lysine in protein of the most studied bread wheat entries varied from 1.10 to 2.62%. In some entries, this value exceeded 3%. However, it is necessary to note that the entries with high Iysine content were characterized by low protein content. E.g., Erythrospermum (Mexico/Turkey), characterized by as high value of lysine content as 3.08%, was found to have as low protein content as 12.2%. Analogously, Lutescense (Turkey) showed 3.24% and 13.9% for lysine and protein content, respectively. The content of triptophane in the evaluated entries varied between 0.40 and 1.80% ofthe total protein content. In most cases, the triptophane content values of the entries were inferior to that of the check. Only in some entries elevated triptophane content (2%) was observed ( for example, Graecum Mexico and Graecum Mexico/Turkey). Genotypes with high contents of protein and essential amino acids have been identified among the studied germplasm (as compared with the check). The following genotypes have certain value for wheat breeding programs: Erythrospermum Turkey, Erythrospermum China, Graecum Turkey, Lutescense Hungary, Graecum Mexico/Turkey, Milturum Hungary, Ferrugineum Texas/Turkey. The study data is summarized in the table.

English

0408|AGRIS 0401|AL-Wheat Program

Juan Carlos Mendieta

CIMMYT Publications Collection