Grain and milling characteristics and their relationship with selected mixogram parameters in hard red bread wheat

Breeders in South Africa are faced with the problem that quality testing is only done in advanced phases of the bread wheat breeding programme when enough seed is available. This means that lines not meeting quality requirements of the South African industry for cultivar release are only discarded during the advanced breeding phases. The aim of this study was to determine relationships between grain and milling characteristics and mixogram parameters and to determine whether these characteristics can be used for selection of acceptable mixogram parameters and vice versa. A mixograph with Mixsmart software was used to analyse 10 bread wheat cultivars, in four replications at three different locations. Thirteen mixogram parameters were used to determine correlations with important grain and milling characteristics. Highly significant correlations were observed between mixogram parameters and grain as well as milling characteristics, although not with hectolitre mass, thousand kernel mass, vitreous kernels, falling number or flour colour. Multiple coefficient of determination was low to moderate for grain characteristics and low for milling characteristics as independent variables in explaining the variation in several mixogram parameters. In spite of the highly significant correlations, grain and milling characteristics explained little of the variation in mixogram parameters in this study.