Cereal Chem 72:341-343  |  VIEW ARTICLE

Differences Among Gliadins from Spring and Winter Wheat Cultivars.

F. R. Huebner, T. C. Nelsen, and J. A. Bietz. Copyright 1995 by the American Association of Cereal Chemists, Inc. 

Accurate and reliable classification of U.S. hard red spring (HRS) and hard red winter (HRW) wheats is necessary in marketing. Such classification is difficult because kernels from many of the cultivars that are grown, even of different classes, may have similar phenotypes. Some studies suggest that HRS wheats contain more of the most hydrophobic gliadins than do HRW wheats. We used reversed-phase high- performance liquid chromatography to quantitatively analyze gliadins from HRS and HRW wheats. Diversity among cultivars was large, but statistical analyses revealed significant differences for certain gliadins. Unlike previous reports, however, we observed no difference in amount of the latest eluting gliadins between HRS and HRW wheats. When HRS wheats were grown in California and Arizona as winter wheats, the total protein content was lower, and their gliadin compositions resembled those of the HRW wheats grown in normal HRW environments. These results suggest that quantitative differences in protein compositions of HRS and HRW wheats are primarily due to genetic and environmental, rather than to true class-related differences.