Grain quality traits of commercial durum wheat varieties and their relationships with drought stress and glutenins composition

Durum wheat is an important crop widely distributed which grain is used in the elaboration of diverse food products. Most notably, durum wheat is used for the production of high quality pasta all around the world, but also for bread, couscous or bulgur, among other products. The end-use quality of these products is heavily determined by the grain quality characteristics, which depend on the wheat variety cultivated, the environmental effects and GxE interactions. The present study was conducted using a collection of 46 commercial durum wheat varieties to describe the phenotypic variation of the main target traits determining wheat quality, ascertain the effects of drought stress (very common in durum areas) on grain quality traits, and to assess the relationship between allelic variations of glutenins composition and gluten properties. Overall the varieties from Australia, USA and Italy showed the best performance in terms of grain quality. Additionally, the effects of drought stress on grain quality traits were analyzed: some traits were favored due to a higher protein concentration but others, such as flour yellowness were not affected by drought stress. The analysis of the varieties' glutenins composition showed the positive or negative effect of some alleles on different quality traits.