Abstract

The biotechnological advances and various crop improvement strategies have contributed to a great extent in nutritional improvement of important food crops, as an intervention toward alleviating the hidden hunger for the developing countries. The development, evaluation, and utilization of biofortified wheat are of great significance to achieve the above goal. In this study, biofortified wheat lines were subjected to soaking (12 hours) and germination (upto 96 hours) at room temperature. The soluble protein and starch contents were evaluated after 12 hours of soaking. Soluble protein, starch, total phenolics, and anthocyanin contents were determined in germinated seed samples at various time intervals (i.e., 12, 24, 48, 72, and 96 hours). In ungerminated wheat, soluble protein and starch contents were observed in the range of 6.96–8.04 mg/g and 0.110–0.147 mg/g, respectively, whereas, after 12 hours of soaking it was increased up to 7.15–8.18 and 0.119–0.150 mg/g, respectively. Moreover, the soluble protein content and starch were slightly improved by 26.8%–48.2% and 21.5%–50.8% of initial value, respectively, between 72 and 96 hours post-germination. In germinated wheat, the overall total phenolic and anthocyanin contents were substantially higher than that of non-germinated wheat. These results suggested that the germination has tremendous potential to improve the bioactive components and functional property of wheat flour. The improvement of the nutritional quality will help the consumers to get benefits of germinated wheat.

Key words: Biofortified Wheat genotypes; Soaking; Germination; Wheat quality; Total phenolic content; Total anthocyanin content