Improving grain quality: ecophysiological and modeling tools to develop management and breeding strategies

Abstract

Grain quality is a complex character primarily determined by processes at the crop level. This chapter reviews the effects of environment, genotype, and their interactions, on grain oil and protein concentration and composition. The focus is on sunflower as an oilseed model and bread wheat as a cereal model. Sunflower oil composition is analyzed in terms of concentration and composition of fatty acids, tocopherols and phytosterols while, in bread wheat, grain prolamin composition is considered. Process-based crop models accounting for grain yield in both species, and for concentration and composition of oil (sunflower) and protein (wheat) are described. A combination of modeling and experiments allowed analysis of the relationships between quality traits and yield. Finally, we use physiologically-based relationships of yield and oil attributes (sunflower) and yield and protein attributes (wheat) to design management and breeding strategies for grain quality improvement.