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Cereal Chem 50:220 - 232.  |  VIEW ARTICLE
Changes in the Carbohydrate Composition During Development and Maturation of the Wheat and Barley Kernel.

J. Cerning and A. Guilbot. Copyright 1973 by the American Association of Cereal Chemists, Inc. 

Studies have been made on the change of the high-molecular carbohydrate composition (starch, pentosans, crude fiber) and the principal alcohol-soluble sugars in the developing wheat and barley kernel. Samples were collected from the fields at 9 to 49 days after flowering at intervals of 3 to 4 days, immediately immersed in liquid nitrogen, freeze-dried, and ground. Carbohydrate analyses were carried out with adequate methods which result in values of good precision and reproducibility. The results are expressed on a 1,000-kernel weight basis, which permits one to distinguish between the carbohydrates accumulating in the kernel (mainly starch, pentosans, and crude fiber) and those which arise by an intermediate pathway (mainly glucose and sucrose). The results are given as a function of a climatic factor, the cumulative daily mean temperature from the point of flowering. Thus it is possible to compare not only one cereal grown in different years and various regions but also all cereals among each other. Starch development was found to be essentially identical in the two cereals. Pentosans of wheat develop analogously to starch in the case of the Joss variety, while they follow the evolution of crude fiber in the case of the Capelle variety. Barley, a covered cereal, shows a very rapid and parallel accumulation of pentosans and crude fiber. The alcohol- soluble sugars increase in the very early stage of development and then decrease to a more or less constant value. Some important phases in the formation of the carbohydrates become apparent and the relationship between the development of these components and the hydration of the kernel is discussed.

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