The inheritance and expression of grain texture in wheat, as measured by a microtome procedure

Although grain texture has been extensively studied, there is still some controversy about its mode of inheritance. The aim of this study was to use a microtome method to determine the inheritance of grain texture. The backcross method was used with a hard, well adapted cultivar, M29519 as recurrent parent, and Edwall, a soft cultivar with good biscuit-making quality, as donor. Segregation ratio's for grain texture were calculated after each backcross. The backcross derivates M29519 (soft) and M29519 (hard) and the donor and recurrent parents were also compared for biscuit-making quality. The microtome method was found to be very effective to determine grain texture. In this study grain softness was determined by a single dominant gene. M29519 (hard) and the recurrent parent did not differ significantly for any quality characteristics. M29519 (hard) and M29519 (soft) differed significantly for seven characteristics associated with biscuit-making quality, and M29519 (soft) produced a significantly larger biscuit diameter than M29519 (hard). M29519 (soft) differed significantly from the donor parent for six of the measured characteristics. Despite this, M29519 (soft) produced a biscuit similar in diameter to that of the donor parent. Therefore, although the transfer of the softness genes into a different genetic background did not transfer all the factors generally associated with good biscuit-making quality, it did produce a biscuit that did not differ significantly from that of the donor. This revised version was published online in July 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.