Technological Quality of Dual-purpose Wheat Submitted to Successive Defoliations

Defoliation may interfere in the sink-source relationship and influence grain production and the respective technological quality of wheat flour, particularly in cultivars with potential as forage and in subsequent grain production. This study aimed to determine the effects of plant cutting heights and number of cuttings on the technological wheat flour quality of BRS Umbu and BRS Tarumã cultivars. A completely randomized design with four repetitions was used and treatments consisted of a combination of cutting heights (20 and 30 cm) and number of cuttings (no cutting, 1, 2 and 3 cuttings), resulting in the following treatments- 20/1, 20/2, 20/3 30/1, 30/2, 30/3 and controls with no cuttings. Hectoliter weight, grain crude protein, tenacity- extensibility ratio, gluten strength, falling number and wet gluten were measured. Regardless of the cutting height used, and after defoliation, the variables exhibited higher values than in non-defoliated plants, with protein content increasing by 6 and 11.3% for the BRS Tarumã and BRS Umbu cultivars, respectively. As such, it can be inferred that defoliation does not negatively affect the technological quality of wheat flour grown in a dual-purpose system.