Original article Influence of growing conditions on the technological performance of bread wheat (Triticum aestivum L.) Marina Carcea,* Simona Salvatorelli, Valeria Turfani & Francesco Mellara Unit of Studies on Cereals, National Institute for Research on Food and Nutrition, Rome, Italy (Received 19 June 2006; Accepted in revise form 14 August 2006) Summary Six bread wheat cultivars were grown in the same environment according to a conventional and an organic agricultural protocol. Hardness, moisture, test weight, protein and ash content and falling number were determined on kernels. Flour yield, particle size distribution and damaged starch were determined on flours together with farinograph and alveograph parameters. Loaves of bread were also baked following a straight dough standardised recipe. Results indicated that protein content was the quality parameter which was negatively influenced by organic farming. Hardness was also negatively influenced in four out of six cultivars, whereas the other technological parameters did not show the same trend for all the cultivars. The milling performance was similar between organic and conventional samples, whereas the differences in protein contents were clearly responsible for differences in rheological properties. As expected, volumes of the organic loaves of breads were significantly lower than those of the corresponding conventional ones. Keywords Bread baking performance, bread wheat, conventional farming, organic farming, soft wheat, technological qualities. Introduction In Europe, consumers’ interest in ecologically or organ- ically produced foods has grown steadily in recent years prompting increased use of organic agricultural systems. It is a popular belief that organic raw materials have lower levels of environmental contaminants and that they are in general healthier than the corresponding conventional products, the main difference between conventional and ecological farming being the use of fertilisers and pesticides (Woese et al., 1997; Haglund et al., 1998; Bourn & Prescott, 2002; Fillion & Arazi, 2002; Makatouni, 2002; Magkos et al., 2003). This, in part, explains why although organic products are often more expensive than their conventional counterparts, they nevertheless have good market appeal. Cereal products such as bread and pasta are very popular in Italy where they are part of the daily diet. Bread wheat flour is used to manufacture a tremendous variety of bread and baked products (cakes, biscuits) both at the artisanal and at the industrial levels. Some of these products are traditional products and they were granted marks of origin by the European Union. So the growing interest in organic foods is inevitably involving also the cereal foods sector (Carcea et al., 2002). As well as the concern for the environment, quality attributes of the final products are also important when consumers choose organic foods and producers in particular are anxious to know about the influence of organic farming on the technological performance of their produce, especially in those raw materials such as cereals which are subject to several levels of processing along their food chain. Growing conditions of a crop may have a significant effect on plant growth and metabolism, and thus have a direct relationship on raw material quality for the food industry. The effects of climatic factors such as tem- perature and moisture and agronomic inputs (tillage, weeding, fertilisation, etc.) on the wheat crop growth and metabolism have been well researched and links between these factors and crop performance expressed by grain yield, and grain physical and technological quality have been well researched (Yamazaki et al., 1981; Altenbach et al., 2003; Kihlberg et al., 2003; Clarke et al., 2004). In this paper, we report a single-year field experi- ment investigating the effect of growing under the same climatic and soil conditions, six soft wheat cultivars very popular in Italy for conventional agriculture under both an organic and a conventional protocol, in order to assess the influence of organic farming on the technological quality of grains for milling and baking. *Correspondent: Fax: +39 06 51494550; e-mail: carcea@inran.it International Journal of Food Science and Technology 2006, 41 (Supplement 2), 102–107 102 doi:10.1111/j.1365-2621.2006.01422.x Ó 2006 Institute of Food Science and Technology Trust Fund