Most suitable mixing parameters for use in breeding breadwheat for processing quality

Dough mixing properties are important in determining wheat processing and end-use quality. The Reomixer is a mixograph type device which provides mixing curves, described in detail by a total of 17 parameters. We analyzed the Reomixer mixing parameters of 26 breeding lines grown in 2007, in four contrasting environments (with and without Nitrogen fertilization, under water stress or irrigated). Using these data, we attempted to condense the information by identifying the most suitable parameters for use in a breeding program. We used the following criteria: high reproducibility (minimum coefficient of variation among repetitions), high genotype influence (i.e. high heritability), larger amount of information about overall variation of the other mixing parameters and complementarity of information (low correlation with other selected parameters). Mixing parameters varied widely for all criteria and no one parameter was best for all of them. Based on average performance we selected: “initial slope”, “peak time”, “peak height”, “end width” and “breakdown”, as having better ranking for the first three criteria and being less correlated between themselves than other mixing parameters. The five selected parameters cover all phases of dough development and describe all basic rheological aspects of mixing properties