Wheat quality and productivity as affected by varieties and sowing time in Haryana, India

Abstract

Of the wheat grown in North-West India the majority is consumed as traditional Indian flat bread (chapatti). Chapatti quality is important to consumers and people are willing to pay more for better quality wheat flour, but farmers do not specifically target quality outcomes as the majority of their wheat is sold with no segregation. For farmers the main objective is to harvest maximum yields, but in the last decade productivity growth for wheat yields has slowed in the areas where the wheat is grown in a double cropping pattern. Nutrient depletion and temperature-related stress are possible causes for this decline in productivity growth. Farmers meanwhile are looking to opportunities to maintain profitability and, with consumers willing to pay a higher price for better chapatti wheat, an opportunity exists for farmers to manage their wheat to improve both the yield as well as quality of wheat. In this paper we evaluate management practices that best achieve high yield and better chapatti quality, and assess the temperature environment for the winter wheat growing season. A step-wise analysis of the long-term temperature trend for sites in NW India showed that mean annual temperature has increased by 0.7-1.0. °C during the last decade. Field experiments with wheat varieties (C-306, WH-283, DBW-17, PBW-343, PBW-502, PBW-550, Raj-3765 and WH-1025) were conducted at farmers' fields under 4 different sequential cropping rotations for the 2007-08 and 2008-09 winter seasons in Haryana (India). C-306 and WH-283 are varieties with excellent chapatti quality but are lower yielding by 15-26% than the more widely grown varieties such as PBW-343 and PBW-502. The replicated experiments involved three sowing times, these being an early sowing (late October to early November, timely sowing (mid November) and a late sowing (early December). A differential response of varieties was observed to sowing time with the yield of C-306 better whereas that of WH-283 and Raj-3765 was poor in early sown conditions. The varieties DBW-17, PBW-343 and PBW-502 were the highest yielding wheat with similar performance under early as well as timely sowing. All the varieties had lowest yield in December sowing. In general, late sowing had lower thousand grain weight but higher protein content. Of the quality measure grain hardness was the only attribute with a consistent positive correlation with chapatti quality. The chapatti score was higher for varieties C-306 and WH-283 compared to the other varieties but grain hardness and chapatti score was not much affected by sowing time. With all varieties included in the analysis there was no correlation between protein and chapatti score, but within an individual variety usually higher protein resulted in a higher chapatti score. There was no association of grain test weight or sedimentation value with chapatti score. From the results shown here it is evident that farmers will be able to manage with variety choice and timely sowing to obtain chapatti quality without losing grain yield benefits. © 2011 Elsevier B.V.