Unlocking the potential of ancient hexaploid Indian dwarf wheat, Tritium sphaerococcum for grain quality improvement

Sneha Adhikari; Jyoti Kumari; Rakesh Bhardwaj; Sherry Jacob; Sapna Langyan; Shivani Sharma; Anju M Singh; Ashok Kumar

doi:10.7717/peerj.15334

Unlocking the potential of ancient hexaploid Indian dwarf wheat, Tritium sphaerococcum for grain quality improvement

PeerJ. 2023 Jul 27:11:e15334. doi: 10.7717/peerj.15334. eCollection 2023.

Authors

Sneha Adhikari^#¹, Jyoti Kumari^#², Rakesh Bhardwaj², Sherry Jacob², Sapna Langyan², Shivani Sharma², Anju M Singh³, Ashok Kumar²

Affiliations

¹ ICAR-Indian Institute of Wheat and Barley Research, Shimla, HP, India.
² ICAR-National Bureau of Plant Genetic Resources, New Delhi, Delhi, India.
³ ICAR-Indian Agricultural Research Institute, New Delhi, Delhi, India.

^# Contributed equally.

Abstract

Wild and ancient wheat are considered to be a rich source of nutrients and better stress tolerant, hence being re-considered for mainstreaming its cultivation by the farmers and bringing it back to the food basket. In the present study, thirty-four diverse accessions of Indian dwarf wheat, Triticum sphaerococcum conserved in the Indian National Genebank were evaluated for thirteen-grain quality parameters namely thousand-grain weight (TGW), hectolitre weight (HW), sedimentation value (Sed), grain hardness index (HI), protein (Pro), albumin (Alb), globulin (Glo), gliadin (Gli), glutenin (Glu), gluten, lysine (Lys), Fe²⁺ and Zn²⁺ content, and four antioxidant enzymes activities. Substantial variations were recorded for studied traits. TGW, HW, Sed, HI, Pro, Alb, Glo, Gli, Glu, Gluten, Lys, Fe²⁺, and Zn²⁺ varied from 26.50-45.55 g, 70.50-86.00 kg/hl, 24.00-38.00 ml, 40.49-104.90, 15.34-19.35%, 17.60-40.31 mg/g, 10.75-16.56 mg/g, 26.35-44.94 mg/g, 24.47-39.56 mg/g, 55.33-75.06 mg/g, 0.04-0.29%, 42.72-90.72 ppm, and 11.45-25.70 ppm, respectively. Among antioxidants, peroxidase (POX), catalase (CAT), glutathione reductase (GR), and superoxide dismutase (SOD) activity ranged from 0.06-0.60 unit/ml, 0.02-0.61 unit/ml, 0.11-2.26 unit/ml, and 0.14-0.97 unit/ml, respectively. Hardness Index was positively associated with Pro and Zn²⁺ content whereas Lys was negatively associated with gluten content. Likewise, gluten and Fe²⁺ content had a positive association with the major protein fraction i.e., Gli and Glu. Hierarchical cluster analysis grouped 34 accessions into four clusters and the major group had nine indigenous and eight exotic accessions. We also validated high GPC accessions and EC182958 (17.16%), EC187176 and EC182945 (16.16%), EC613057 (15.79%), IC634028 (15.72%) and IC533826 (15.01%) were confirmed with more than 15% GPC. Also, superior trait-specific accessions namely, EC187167, IC534021, EC613055, EC180066, and EC182959 for low gluten content and IC384530, EC313761, EC180063, IC397363, EC10494 for high iron content (>76.51) were identified that may be used in wheat quality improvement for nutritional security of mankind.

Keywords: Diversity; Evaluation; Grain quality; Indian dwarf wheat; Triticum sphaerococcum.

Publication types

Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

Edible Grain
Glutens
Quality Improvement*
Triticum* / genetics
Tritium

Substances

Tritium
Glutens

Grants and funding

The research work was carried out under NBPGR In-House Project (PGR/DGE-BUR-DEL-01.01). The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.