Agraarteadus (Jun 2019)
Review: The overview of the research on the sulphur application to winter wheat in Estonia
Abstract
Due to several objective reasons, the sulphur (S) deficiency in agricultural crops in Europe came to the fore in the last decades before the turn of the century. This work gives an overview of the Estonian long-year research concerning winter wheat responses on the S fertilization. This study presents a versatile influence of S application – beginning with the influence on the yield formation, grain yield quantity and quality, followed by the one on the biological quality of wheat proteins, and on the bread-making properties of flour and dough, and ending with the one on the quality indices of baked breads. Field experiments were conducted at two locations on calcaric Cambisol and Podzoluvisol. On the background of N100 or 120 kg ha-1, S was given as granular NS-fertilizers or foliar applied with Sulfur F3000 or with fungicide Thiovit Jet. Flour and dough properties for bread-making were determined by using a farinograph Brabender. The baking tests were carried out in laboratory conditions. The influence of S on the grain yield and quality, and bread-making properties of wheat depended on the year and location. As the average of experiments, the S application significantly increased the grain yield (r = 0.960). The increasing yields were accompanied by decreasing contents of protein and wet gluten. However, due to S application the biological quality of proteins was increasing, because the contents of some essential amino acids were increasing. The significant positive (r = 0.938) effect of the S application on the Gluten index was revealed, which is a good predictor for the baking quality of wheat flour. In addition, some significant positive effects of the S application on the rheological properties of dough and quality indices of baked breads were demonstrated. Thus, the S addition by nitrogen fertilization in parallel with increasing yields improved several bread-making parameters of wheat flour.
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