C. Kuti

Composition and End-Use Quality of 150 Wheat Lines Selected for the HEALTHGRAIN Diversity Screen

The HEALTHGRAIN program is focused on developing new healthy food products based on wholegrains of wheat and other cereals, by combining enhanced nutritional quality with good agronomic performance and processing quality. A sample set comprising 130 winter and 20 spring wheat varieties was therefore selected to identify the range of variation in a number of phytochemical and dietary fiber components. These lines were also analyzed for their technological properties (protein and gluten contents, Zeleny sedimentation, bran yield, kernel hardness, etc.), using samples grown on adjacent sites for two successive seasons (2004-2005, 2005-2006). On the basis of the frequency distribution and principal component analysis it was concluded that significant variation for technological quality traits is present in the 150 wheat lines and that it is possible to combine enhanced nutritional quality with good agronomic performance and processing properties.

Computerised Data Management System for Cereal Breeding

A program package for wheat breeding was compiled inMartonvásár in 1983 and was used for over 10 years with minormodifications to satisfy breeding requirements. Due to new ideas andadvances made in the field of computer science and othertechnologies the data structure and program package have been redesigned.The chief emphasis in developing the Martonvásár Wheat BreedingSoftware is on the handling of genealogical and observation data and on theclassifications required for well-based selection decisions. The widely-usedWindows 9x/NT operational system, the MSAccess data base-handlingsystem and the Visual Basic 5.0 programming language have been chosenfor this purpose. The subprograms controlling major breeding tasks includethe transfer of the data of the selected lines, with the necessarymodifications, to the data base of the new experimental year, the handlingof new crosses and seed shipment data, the preparation of the field plan,various output (label, fieldbook) and input (manual, online) possibilities anda simple statistical module.

Informatical background of field experiments

Our objectives were to assess and rank 3 soil condition variants - root zone improving (RI), mulch leaving (NIL) and minimum disturbing (MD) - suitability to soil quality improvement and demonstrate the plant responses to different soil state and rind a possible relation between soil condition and plant growth under extreme climate. To rank the soil-plant interrelations twelve soil and plant factors were assessed; quality and depth of loosening state, surface protection by plants and stubble residues, soil aggregation, earthworm number, water supply in the root zone, tillage-induced C-flux, rooting depth of plants, yield, dry biomass and biomass recycling. Finally, seven fundamental requirements were selected to mitigate climate-stress and to improve plant resistance to the heat damage. A climate damage mitigation soil tillage strategy can establish a harmony between soil conservation and the demands of crop production.The results of a small-pot experiment of cadmium-loading (5 mgkg) with the addition of zinc (5 mgkg) carried out are introduced in this paper. For this, soil samples were taken from 4 sites of plough-land, grassland and forest land-use types. Accumulation characteristics of the two metals as well as their interaction with the soil properties were analysed. The results show that land-use has significant effect on zinc uptake. There is close correlation between the zinc and cadmium uptake of plants as well as that cadmium concentration of soils plays an important role in it. Zinc shows positive correlation while cadmium shows negative correlation with organic matter. Beside organic colloids, inorganic colloids i.e. clay fraction also showed close correlation.The effects of soil and climatic properties was studied on the winter wheat (Triticum aestivum L.) concerning on the heavy metal content of the plants. During this study the distribution of cobalt, copper, iron, manganese, nickel, and zinc was studied within a plant. Sampling was carried out in the same period of subsequent three years between 1995 and 1997. Our hypothesis was that the individuals of the same species has similar physiological answer for the same environmental properties. In this study we found no significant differences among the different plant’s parts and years. Our results can reveal that the ecological indication of plants could be major driver of agro-environmental studies to recognize unusual patterns of soil attributes.

Pedigree records in plant breeding: from independent data to interdependent data structures

The storage of wheat data in computers began in the mid-eighties in Martonvasar, and was accompanied by the development of the first simple programs to assist the data management of routine breeding tasks. The great expansion of breeding materials and the demand for new applications have led to an enormous increase in the number of data and have made data processing increasingly more complicated. Data storage facilities and computer programs reflecting an outdated technological level were unable to keep pace with developments. Data storage and applications had to be redesigned on new lines to create a completely new information system amalgamating know-how from breeding and informatics.The paper introduces an extremely important part of this system: pedigree records, which contain the designations of all the genotypes included in traditional field breeding programmes and in the gene bank, together with crossing data, phenotypes and genomic data.An up-to-date, consistent pedigree register is one of the key...

Bioinformatics Tool for Handling Molecular Data in Wheat Breeding

The research institute in Martonvasar is one of the largest agricultural research institutes in Hungary and in Central Europe. For many years now, the accumulated data on the extensive wheat breeding stocks has been handled and analysed using programs developed in the institute. The information system that has been elaborated and constantly improved can be used for keeping records of breeding stock, for planning field and laboratory experiments, for site-plant performance evaluation, for automated data collection, for the rapid evaluation of the results and for effective management of the pedigree, seed exchange and the institute’s cereal gene bank. The demand for the storage of molecular data and their use in breeding has increased parallel with the development of new, PCR-based markers. For this reason, informatics tools (data structure and software) suited to the design of marker-assisted selection experiments and the interpretation of the results have been developed as part of the existing Martonvasar wheat breeding information system. The aim was to link molecular data to the phenotypic information already available in the database and to make the results available to wheat breeders and geneticists. The interpretation of molecular data related to specific genotypes is of assistance in clarifying the genetic background of economically important phenotypic traits, in identifying markers linked to the useful genes or agronomic traits to be found in the genomics database, and in the selection of satisfactory parental partners for breeding. Marker assisted selection coupled with traditional breeding activities enables the breeder to make plant selections based on the presence of target genes. Conventional wheat breeding with the integrated molecular component allows breeders to more accurately and efficiently select defined sets of genes in segregating generations. The molecular data are stored in a relational database, the central element of which is the [DNASource] entity. This is used to collect and store information on gene sources arising during breeding. It is therefore linked both to the phenotypic data stored in the traditional breeding system (measurements, observations, laboratory data) and to the component parts of the new, molecular data structure ([PrimerBank], [Marker], [Allele] and [Gene]).