Joshua Hegarty, a researcher at the University of California, Davis, stands amid varieties of triticale in a campus greenhouse. An $800,000 research grant will fund development of bread-quality triticale, which can be added to wheat in baking.
New triticale study to target flavorful varieties for bread
Craft bakers love adding a little triticale to breads for its subtle blend of nutty and earthy flavors and its moist, slightly chewy texture. Farmers love the grain mainly for forage: It produces bigger yields with less water and fertilizer compared to wheat. University of California, Davis, re- searcher Joshua Hegarty and colleagues across the country are working on com- bining those qualities to create new variet- ies of triticale that are good for bread-bak- ing at commercial scale and offer more value for growers. The Agriculture and Food Research Initiative, part of the U.S. Department of Agriculture, has funded the research with a grant of $800,000 over the next four years. AFRI announced the grant this month with the aim of developing new cultivars of bread-quality triticale as a higher-yield, lower-cost addition to wheat for baking. “We are doing this work in cultivars that already are well adapted to many of the most important grain-growing re- gions in the world,” said Hegarty, a proj- ect scientist in the UC Davis Department of Plant Sciences. Triticale is a hybrid of wheat and rye. Scientists first started experimenting with the plant in the late 1800s. The first breed- ing program began in the early 1950s, with the goal of creating a grain that combines needs in the field with needs in the kitchen: the yield potential and stress resilience of rye with the qualities of wheat that lead to light, high-volume, protein-rich loaves of bread. The result has proven productive: Triticale yields 11% more grain per acre than wheat and 19% more when grown with less fertilizer. Triticale also is rich in protein, minerals, vitamins and fiber. The grain is grown on almost 2 mil- lion acres in the U.S. and 10 million acres worldwide, but nearly all is used for animal forage and feed. Triticale flour is too tender for wide- spread adoption into bread manufactur- ing. When triticale dough is mixed even for a short time, the gluten—the substance that gives dough its elasticity—breaks down, and the dough becomes a sticky mess. When baked, the loaf does not rise well. Both problems are common traits of its rye parent, Hegarty said. In Ukraine, however, scientists have worked since the Soviet era to develop
triticale that produces loaves with pal- ate-pleasing volume similar to that of wheat. Yet, those varieties still lack wheat’s mixing tolerance and gluten strength. Hegarty and colleagues have bred Ukrainian varieties with UC Davis tritica- le, and the grant allows them to continue making progress. “We want to take the large loaf volume of the Ukrainian triticale and the mixing tolerance of what we have developed here to improve the gluten, blend it all to- gether and, hopefully, get a triticale that approaches the bread quality of wheat,” Hegarty explained. The team already has developed lines carrying different combinations of five wheat genes that improve mixing quality. Artisan millers and bakers are testing them now, Hegarty said. Meanwhile, the team is trying to locate the genes in the Ukrainian triticale con- trolling loaf volume. “This appears to be something unique in the rye part of the genome, which the Ukrainians were able to select for,” Hegarty added. Collaborators are contributing from institutions in Washington, Colorado, Nebraska and Maryland, testing for suit- ability in various grain-growing environ- ments and, in Maryland, for tolerance to fusarium fungal infection. Another collaborator, the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center outside Mexico City, will channel result- ing varieties for testing and eventual use abroad—a boon for food security. “We plan to test those varieties in Ethiopia and other regions where people could benefit, especially on marginal lands,” Hegarty said. The grant also nourishes a new gener- ation of triticale breeders at a time when planted acreage is growing and facing risks from evolving diseases, according to George Fohner, a member of the California Grain Foundation who wrote in support of Hegarty’s project. Hegarty is co-principal investigator and lead researcher in the grant. He started a trit- icale research and breeding program at UC Davis in 2017 while still a graduate student. (This article was originally published by the College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences at the University of California, Davis.)
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