Genetic diversity of winter durum wheat specimens of the trait collection by pasta properties as a basis for creation of new cultivars

Abstract

Aim. To identify new sources of winter durum wheat by valuable economic traits, to determine relationships between pasta properties and to form a trait collection on this basis. Results and Discussion. Having comprehensively assessed valuable economic traits and pasta properties, we selected sources and reference accessions that significantly enriched the genetic diversity of the National Plant Gene Pool of Ukraine. They served as a basis for a trait collection by pasta properties. The trait collection of winter durum wheat by pasta properties (certificate No. 302 dated December 18, 2020) comprises 50 accessions from ten countries and reflects their diversity in terms of 20 traits and 73 levels of their expression, including flour and dry pasta color, weight increase, volume increase, cooking loss, the total pasta score, protein content in grain, vitreousness, as well as a number of valuable economic traits, in particular, disease resistance, performance, etc. Biologically, 48 accessions are cultivars and two are breeding lines. They represent one botanical species (T. durum Desf.) and four varieties (megalopolitanum, hordeiforme, leucurum, niloticum). Conclusions. New comprehensively valuable sources with high resistance to biotic factors and high yields (127-164% related to the check cultivar) have been identified: Koral Odeskyi, Pributkova, Passat (UKR); Amazon, Teya, Odari (RUS); and XE 9710 (FRA). Lainer (UKR); Zolotko, Yakhont (RUS); Sani Bugda (AZE); Saturn 1 (BGR); XE 9710 (FRA), and others were noticeable for high values of the total pasta score. High vitreousness was recorded for Zolotko and Kurant (RUS). High protein content in grain was intrinsic to Zolote Runo (UKR), Kondurum (ROU) and others. The above-listed accessions are valuable starting material for creating new promising cultivars. It was found that there were significant correlations (P<0.01) between the total pasta score and dry pasta color (r = 0.66), between the total pasta score and cooked pasta volume (r = −0.53) and between the total pasta score and cooked pasta weight (r = −0.52).