Improving the health benefits of wheat

Analysis of wheat lines in the HEALTHGRAIN diversity screen has shown wide variation in the content of phytochemicals, dietary fibre components and minerals. In some cases, notably dietary fibre components, alkylresorcinols, tocols and sterols, this variation is also highly heritable, indicating that the contents of these components could be increased by plant breeding. Lower heritability was observed for the contents of Fe and Zn, but this may still be sufficient to achieve some increases by plant breeding. By contrast, some other components, such as folates, phenolic acids and Se, exhibit low levels of heritability. Grain concentrations of iron and zinc were lower in modern semi-dwarf cultivars than in older tall cultivars but no relationship between the date of release and the contents of phytochemicals and dietary fibre components was found.