Genetic and environmental variability in the nutrient content of wheat

As part of the European HEALTHGRAIN project, a panel of 200 cereal varieties, including 150 soft wheat varieties, was assessed for their content of various bioactive compounds. Wide ranges of variation were observed for the majority of components, with high levels not being associated with the age of the varieties, yield or processing quality. A multi-location, multi-year analysis of a set of 26 representative lines then enabled the heritability of the content levels to be estimated, which varies greatly depending on the compound. The compounds most likely to respond to genetic improvement are tocols, sterols, alkylresorcinols and soluble arabinoxylans in the flour (fibre). For the latter, we illustrate the development of molecular markers to facilitate selection, using approaches based on forward genetics (QTL mapping) and reverse genetics (candidate genes).