| Soft white-seeded winter wheat (Triticum aestivum L.) cultivars are currently not grown in Arkansas because of unacceptable quality performance. This study was conducted to evaluate both white- and red-seeded experimental lines from different populations of white- and red-seeded parents. Yield, test weight, agronomic traits, quality parameters, susceptibility to pre-harvest sprouting, and alpha-amylase activity were tested. Plots were grown at the Rice Research and Extension Center near Stuttgart, Arkansas on a Dewitt silt loam and the Lon Maim Cotton Research Station near Marianna, Arkansas on a Loring silt loam. Samples were placed in a dew chamber and evaluated for pre-harvest sprouting using the PhadebasRTM Tablet Method at the Rosen Alternative Pest Control Center located on the University of Arkansas campus in Fayetteville, Arkansas. Rainfall amounts between optimum harvest and delayed harvest were 4.2 cm (Stuttgart) and 3.9 cm (Marianna) during the 2008 growing season. Rainfall amounts during the weathering period in 2009 were 7.8 cm for Stuttgart and 7.4 cm for Marianna. As a result, several of the measured parameters were affected by weathering. Test weight and yields were affected by disease pressures during Feekes Growth Stage 10 (flowering) and excessive weathering during physiological maturity. Excessive weathering resulted in unacceptable quality parameters in both soft white- and red-seeded winter wheat lines. Under field conditions white-seeded experimental wheat lines proved to have comparable test weight, yield and quality parameters when compared to red-seeded wheat lines grown in Arkansas. Results from the dew chamber indicate that several white-seeded wheat lines had comparable levels of pre-harvest sprouting as red-seeded lines when tested using the PhadebasRTM Tablet Method and when visual ratings were taken. |
