Moderate late sowing balances wheat yield and dough quality by regulating temperature-mediated nitrogen accumulation and translocation

Abstract

Although numerous studies have reported the effects of late sowing on wheat yield, its impact on the microstructure and processing quality of wheat dough remains unclear. This study aimed to investigate how late sowing influenced wheat quality, with a focus on both the general characteristics and fine structure of dough. A two-factor split-plot field experiment was conducted during the 2020-2022 growing seasons. Sowing date was assigned as the main plot, including four treatments: T1 (October 8), T2 (October 20), T3 (November 1), and T4 (November 13). The subplot was wheat variety, comprising two strong-gluten varieties and two medium-gluten varieties. Results indicated that appropriately late sowing altered the source-sink ratio, enhanced nitrogen uptake and accumulation in wheat plants, and significantly increased grain protein content and protein yield. At T3, protein content increased by 1.71%-27.22%, and protein yield increased by 3.32%-15.42% compared with other sowing dates. Furthermore, late sowing improved the microstructure of the dough and enhanced the processing quality of the flour. The Mantel test and structural equation modeling revealed that moderate delay in sowing improved thermal conditions from wintering to flowering stage, which promoted nitrogen accumulation and translocation within the plants and increased the contents of protein and glutenin subunits in the grain. These changes ultimately optimized the dough microstructure and improved the processing quality of wheat. With the delay of sowing date, the grain yield of four wheat varieties peaked at T2 in both 2020-2021 and 2021-2022 growing seasons. Our study provides a theoretical reference for how sowing date affects wheat yield and quality.

Keywords

Dough microstructure / Dough quality / Nitrogen accumulation / Sowing date / Temperature conditions / Wheat

Abbreviations

BR	branching rate
DB	disulfide bonds
Ext	extensibility
GJ	gluten junctions
Glu/Gli	ratio of glutenin to gliadin
HMW-GSs	high molecular weight glutenin subunits
LMW-GSs	low molecular weight glutenin subunits
NAA	N accumulation at the flowering stage
NAG	N accumulation in grains
NAM	N accumulation at the maturity stage
NAVM	Nitrogen accumulation in vegetative organs at maturity stage
NRA	N remobilization amount
NRCT	total contribution rate of N remobilization preflowering to grain N
NRR	N remobilization rate
PC	grain protein content
PNC	plant nitrogen content at flowering
RNAA	relative nitrogen accumulation in plants at wheat flowering
RNRA	relative nitrogen remobilization amount
RNRR	relative nitrogen remobilization rate
RPC	relative grain protein content
RPNC	relative plant nitrogen content at flowering
ST	stabilization time
SV	sedimentation value
WG	relative wet gluten content
α/β	α-helix/β-sheet ratio

Authors' contribution

Yakun Li: Writing-original draft, Methodology, Data curation. Xidan Cao: Validation, Investigation. Jingyi Feng: Software, Investigation. Huihui Hu: Formal analysis. Yi Liu: Software. Vinay Nangia: Methodology. Yang Liu: Conceptualization.

Availability of data and materials

Data will be shared upon request by the readers.

Declaration of competing interest

The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper. Author Yang Liu (Editorial Board member) was not involved in the journal's review or decisions related to this manuscript.

Acknowledgements

This research was supported by the National Key Research and Development Program of China (2024YFD2300205) and the Key Research and Development Program of Shaanxi (2024NC-ZDCYL-01-12).

Appendix A. Supplementary data

Supplementary data to this article can be found online at https://doi.org/10.1016/j.crope.2025.10.001.

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