Effect of Weather and Soil Conditions on Yield Components and Bread-Making Quality of Winter Wheat (Triticum aestivum L.) and Winter Triticale (Triticosecale Wittm.) Varieties in North-East Germany

The reduced nutrient and water availability of the sorption‐weak silty sand soil in Thyrow when compared with the loamy sand soil in Berge enhanced the negative effects of unfavourable weather conditions. Winter wheat reacted to weather conditions and soil quality substantially more sensitively than winter triticale, so that the cultivation of wheat on very light sandy soil is combined with a higher risk. Reduced yields resulting from site differences are, for both cereals, mainly a result of reduced ear densities. Low grain yields as in the dry year 2003 led to high crude protein contents, this being more pronounced for winter wheat than for triticale and on the poor silty sand soil in Thyrow to a greater degree than on the loamy sand soil in Berge. For the starch content the contrary holds true. Grain yields were, to a greater extent, decisive for the protein and starch yields than the content values. For both cereals, the sedimentation value, the wet gluten value, the gluten index and the falling number resulted in principally higher values in the dry year 2003 and on the loamy sand soil when compared with the wet year 2004 and the silty sand soil. Only the wet gluten content was not clearly influenced by soil quality. All parameters describing bread‐making quality are clearly lower for winter triticale than for winter wheat. Especially, the falling number was not satisfactory, so that the tested triticale varieties seem only to be suitable for bread‐making by mixing with wheat flour. The internal grain quality of winter wheat varieties is extensively genetically determined. Weather and soil‐induced variations in the quality parameters were, with only few exceptions, greater for winter wheat than for triticale.