Predicting Wheat Quality Characteristics and Functionality Using Near‐Infrared Spectroscopy

Abstract

The accuracy of using near‐infrared spectroscopy (NIRS) for predicting 186 grain, milling, flour, dough, and breadmaking quality parameters of 100 hard red winter (HRW) and 98 hard red spring (HRS) wheat and flour samples was evaluated. NIRS shows the potential for predicting protein content, moisture content, and flour color b* values with accuracies suitable for process control (R2 > 0.97). Many other parameters were predicted with accuracies suitable for rough screening including test weight, average single kernel diameter and moisture content, SDS sedimentation volume, color a* values, total gluten content, mixograph, farinograph, and alveograph parameters, loaf volume, specific loaf volume, baking water absorption and mix time, gliadin and glutenin content, flour particle size, and the percentage of dark hard and vitreous kernels. Similar results were seen when analyzing data from either HRW or HRS wheat, and when predicting quality using spectra from either grain or flour. However, many attributes were correlated to protein content and this relationship influenced classification accuracies. When the influence of protein content was removed from the analyses, the only factors that could be predicted by NIRS with R2 > 0.70 were moisture content, test weight, flour color, free lipids, flour particle size, and the percentage of dark hard and vitreous kernels. Thus, NIRS can be used to predict many grain quality and functionality traits, but mainly because of the high correlations of these traits to protein content.

The colours of durum wheat: a review

“…Dowell (2000) also used NIR spectroscopy to determine the vitreousness of durum wheat kernels and to predict many of their other parameters, including their b* colour value, with accuracies that are suitable for screening (Dowell et al 2006).…”

The Application of Near Infrared Spectroscopy in Wheat Quality Control

“…The following work presented by Williams et al (1988) showed the potential of NIRS to predict Farinograph stability, Extensigraph energy and Alveograph deformation energy. Further research reported by Pawlinsky and Williams (1998), Hrušková et al (2001), Hrušková and Šmejda (2003), Miralbés (2003Miralbés ( , 2004, Dowell et al (2006) and Vázquez et al (2007) were carried out by using analyzers of higher generation -scanning monochromators. The efficiency of the models developed were affected by the form of the samples used (whole grain, ground grain or flour), by the composition of the sample sets which were insufficiently variable and by the inherent variability of the reference rheological methods.…”

Improving the grain quality assessment fusing data from image and spectra analyses

“…In [22] authors used single-kernel near infrared spectroscopy (NIRS) to predict accurately the internal kernel composition. NIRS analysis is applied for predicting protein content, moisture content and flour color b* values [4]. In [9] a method for predicting the protein composition using NIR spectroscopy is developed.…”