Adaptation of AACC method 56-11, solvent retention capacity, for use as an early generation selection tool for cultivar development

The solvent retention capacity (SRC) profile is useful for studying flour components contributing to end-use functionality. The method tests four different solvents with 5 g of flour each. Because of the amount of grain (30-40 g) typically needed to produce 20 of flour for the SRC test, the method is not well-suited for assessing end-use quality of early generation breeding material, where grain quantities are limited. The method was therefore modified to require only 0.2 g of ground wheat instead of 5 g of flour per SRC solvent. The small-scale SRC results using whole meal had correlations of r = 0.86 for lactic acid, r = 0.85 for sodium carbonate, r = 0.78 for sucrose, r = 0.74 for sodium bicarbonate (the alkaline water retention capacity method) and r = 0.69 for water when compared with SRC values from full-scale tests using 5 g of flour. Overall, cultivars with SRC values at the extremes of the distribution were in the same ranked order for the small- and large-scale SRC test results, However, variation in ranked order of cultivars between test methods was detected among samples that were not at the extremes of the distribution. Traditionally, successful wheat breeding strategies involve eliminating or advancing lines from the extremes of the distribution to increase the proportion of desirable genotypes within breeding programs. Results indicated that advancing promising germplasm or eliminating germplasm with inferior end-use quality potential is possible using the small-scale SRC technique to evaluate early generation wheat breeding material, as a sort of breeding triage.