Abstract
Major quality characteristics of wheat grown in southern-zone of Pakistan were assessed and compared with wheat imported from Australia, USA, Russian federation and Canada. The physicochemical characteristics tested were grain size (GS), shriveled and broken grains (SBG), test weight (TW), thousand grain mass (TGM), moisture content (MC), protein content (PC), wet gluten (WG), dry gluten (DG), gluten index (GI), hardness score (HS) and falling number (FN). Canadian and American wheat had the highest TW (78 kg/hL). The respective highest (12.2%) and lowest (9.1%) mean value for MC were found in Russian and American wheat. The respective highest (14%) and lowest (10.7%) PC was found in Canadian and American wheat. The highest and lowest contents of gluten (WG & DG) were found in Australian (32.8% & 10.5%) and Russian (23.4% & 7.5%) origin wheat respectively. Russian and Sindh wheat possessed the highest (83%) and lowest (49.5%) GI, respectively. Sindh and Australian wheat had the lowest activity of α-amylase revealed by falling numbers of 526 sec and 508 sec, respectively. Significant correlation was found between protein and wet gluten contents. Findings of the present study is useful for the breeding programs, milling and processing industry in evaluations of wheat quality.
