Yield and agronomic traits of Khorasan wheat (Triticum turanicum Jakubz.)

The consumer's interest in natural, unconventional and nutritional foods led to the development of new specialty foods based on grain blends. Components of such foods are often so-called 'ancient wheats' which were never the subject of modem plant breeding programmes. Khorasan or Oriental wheat (Triticum turanicum) is a neglected and underutilised tetraploid wheat species, which probably survived over the centuries in subsistence farming systems in the Near East and Central Asia. In the present study the agronomic potential of Khorasan wheat was evaluated under eastern Austrian conditions. Fourteen accessions of Khorasan wheat were investigated together with check durum wheat cultivars over a period of 4 years in the Marchfeld region, north-east of Vienna. The crops were sown both in autumn and spring. The investigated material was inferior to modem durum wheats in most agronomic traits. No accession was found to tolerate soil temperatures below -5 degreesC. Tolerance to drought and fungal diseases was limited and/or modest, and grain yields were significantly lower. While the best performing turanicum accessions yielded in average 385.8 and 233.8 g m(-2) for autumn and spring sowing, respectively, the check winter durum yielded 466.5 g m(-2) and the check spring durums between 351.5 and 391.8 g m(-2). Several characteristics and interesting features were observed which permit successful marketing of pure Khorasan grain or as a component in grain blends, despite possible flour quality traits. The grain has an impressive kernel size and thousand kernel weight, in most cases greater than 50 g and often even greater than 60 g. The high thousand kernel weight might be a valuable trait to transfer into durum wheat to improve grain yield. Moreover, the grain has an amber colour and high vitreousness. Due to higher plant height, low lodging tolerance and high susceptibility against powdery mildew, Khorasan wheat is more suitable for organic farming systems. Although there is evidence that Khorasan wheat has low adaptation. it is of interest as an alternative cereal to increase diversity both in the field and on the consumer's table. However, further experiments are necessary: on the one hand to study the interactions between sowing rates, sowing dates, weed suppression, thousand kernel weight and kernel plumpness in order to find out optimal production procedures, and on the other hand to find out areas/fields with the best growth conditions for Khorasan wheat. (C) 2004 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.