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Cluster analysis of historical and modern hard red spring wheat cultivars based on parentage and HPLC of gluten proteins
M. MALALGODA (1), J. Ohm (2), S. Meinhardt (3), S. Chao (2), S. Simsek (3) (1) NDSU, Fargo, ND, U.S.A.; (2) USDA-ARS, Fargo, ND, U.S.A.; (3) North Dakota State University, Fargo, ND, U.S.A..

There have been substantial breeding efforts in North Dakota to produce wheat cultivars that are well adapted to weather conditions and are disease resistant. In this study, 30 hard red spring (HRS) wheat cultivars released between 1910 and 2013 were analyzed with regard to how they cluster in terms of parentage and protein fraction composition. Protein fractions were analyzed by reverse-phase HPLC (RP-HPLC) for gliadin proteins and size-exclusion HPLC (SE-HPLC) for unreduced proteins. Differences between the clusters with respect to quality characteristics and the semi-dwarf characteristic were also analyzed. In terms of parentage, the clusters formed were grouped according to the release year of cultivar and semi-dwarf characteristics. Also, some farinograph characteristics showed significant (<i>P </i>= 0.05) differences between clusters, indicating improvement of mixing characteristics as a result of breeding efforts. In the dendrograms, based on binary data of gliadin RP-HPLC peaks, the clusters were not grouped according to release year and mixing characteristics. The clusters based on absorbance area data of RP-HPLC of gliadins and SE-HPLC of unreduced proteins showed significant (<i>P </i>= 0.05) differences for release year, semi-dwarf characteristics and some farinograph parameters. The cultivar “Granite”, which is the only cultivar in the study with the <i>Rht-8</i> gene appeared as an anomaly in the dendrograms based on parentage as well as HPLC area data. Overall, the results indicated that the introduction of reduced height genes accompanied improvements in dough mixing and breadmaking quality traits in hard red spring wheat breeding. As per protein data, the results showed that the overall gliadin protein profile was not affected by the reduced height genes, and that the quantity of certain fractions of gluten proteins changed over the last 100 years of wheat breeding.