Cereal Chem 61:518 - 522.  |  VIEW ARTICLE
Yield, Heavy Metal Content, and Milling and Baking Properties of Soft Red Winter Wheat Grown on Soils Amended with Sewage Sludge.

A. W. Kirleis, L. S. Sommers, and D. W. Nelson. Copyright 1984 by the American Association of Cereal Chemists, Inc. 

This study determined yield, metal content, and milling and baking properties of soft red winter wheat grown on soil treated with three municipal sewage sludges. Sewage sludge applications ranged from 56 to 448 tonnes/ha, levels in excess of those allowed by current federal regulations; the data, therefore, represent a worst-case situation. Sludge applications increased the protein content of what grain and flour and decreased alkaline water retention capacity of flour, but they did not affect test weight, thousand-kernel weight, and particle size index. Baking studies indicate that sludge applications decreased the baking quali ty of flour by increasing protein content, resulting in smaller-diameter cookies. Sludge applications also increased concentrations of zinc, cadmium, manganese, and nickel in wheat grain. Because the sludges applied contained CaCO3, which increased soil pH, metal levels in wheat were not directly related to sludge-borne metals added to the soil. Concentrations of zinc, copper, nickel, cadmium, iron, and manganese were typically 5-to 10-fold greater in the bran than in the flour. Metal concentrations in the flour were nearly always less than those found in whole wheat grain with, on the average, less than 24% of the zinc, copper, nickel, cadmium, iron, and manganese in grain being recovered in the flour. The distribution of metals in the bran and flour was similar for wheat grown on sludge-treated and untreated soils.