Evaluation of quality properties of four wheat (Triticum aestivum L.) cultivars in wheat producing provinces of Iran

Bread wheat is known as the staple food crop and its quality properties are variable because of diffrences among cultivars, climatic conditions and farming systems. Due to the lack of adequate information about the quality of different bread wheat cultivars in the farmers’ fields, in this research quality and bakery properties (thousand grain weight, protein content, wet gluten and SDS) of grain samples of four different cultivars of bread wheat (irrigated and rainfed), collected from the farmers’ fields during two growing seasons 2013-14 and 2014-15, which grown on large areas in the country were evaluated. The results showed cv. Azar 2 had better quality than cv. Sardari cultivar by 11.46% protein, 26.3 wet gluten and 55.2 ml SDS in two growing seasons. On the other hand, the quality characteristics of Chamran and Pishgam irrigated bread wheat cultivars were notsignificantly different in different provinces. Also the lowest quality of wheat was observed in Kurdistan, Hamadan and Kohgiluyeh and Boyerahmad. This may be due to nutrient shortage in the soil of those provinces that are largely under rainfed production of wheat.