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Comparison of Quality-Related Alleles Among Australian and North American Wheat Classes Exported to Japan

¹NARO, Western Region Agricultural Research Center, 6-12-1 Nishifukatsu, Fukuyama 721-8514, Japan. ²Corresponding author. Phone: +81-84-923-5344. Fax: +81-84-924-7893. E-mail: tmikeda@affrc.go.jp

Grain hardness, amylose content, and glutenin subunit composition are critical determinants for end-use properties of wheat. To improve the end-use properties of domestic wheats, we studied these traits between the Australian and North American wheat classes exported to Japan in 2009 and 2011 by analyzing the corresponding alleles. Most hard classes had Pina-D1b or Pinb-D1b. A partial waxy allele (Wx-B1b) was found in all Australian Standard White (ASW) seeds in 2009 and two-thirds of ASW seeds in 2011. All or most American hard wheat seeds had Glu-D1d. Most U.S. Western White (WW) seeds had a null allele (Glu-A1c) or alleles that lacked one of the two Glu-B1 subunits. Most hard red winter (HRW) seeds had Glu-B3b or Glu-B3g. Quality characteristics of these classes seemed to be consistent with these results. In addition, we also found new Glu-1 and Glu-3 alleles in HRW and WW. These results suggested that although there are variations in its allelic composition from year to year, each class has unique quality-related alleles corresponding to its end use. We proposed two matrices for classification of starch properties on the basis of Pin and Wx allelic combinations and for classification of gluten strength on the basis of glutenin allelic combinations.