Summary The content of tocopherols, B vitamins, as well as free soluble, soluble conjugated and insoluble bound phenolic compounds was determined in untreated, steeped and sprouted wheat grains. Antioxidant capacity of whole wheat grains and their phenolic fractions was also evaluated. Sprouting significantly increased the levels of tocopherols, niacin, riboflavin, as well as free and bound phenolic compounds improving nutritional value and antioxidant capacity of wheat grains/flour. After sprouting for 5 days, the content of total phenolics, flavonoids and ferulic acid calculated as the sum of its fractions was increased by 9.9, 30.7 and 21.6%, respectively. The content of α‐, β+γ‐ and δ‐tocopherols was increased for 3.59‐fold, 2.33‐fold and 2.61‐fold respectively, while the content of niacin, as predominant B vitamin, was increased for 1.19‐fold after sprouting. The total antioxidant capacity of untreated, steeped and sprouted whole wheat grains was 19.44, 20.37 and 22.70 mmol Trolox Eq/kg, respectively. Sprouted wheat, as a rich source of bioavailable phytochemicals, should be used to improve the nutritional quality of food.

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In the process of plant breeding the application of relevant breeding criteria is very important. The Path analysis is broadly applied with the aim to define yield components that mostly determine the yield and that can be used as quality breeding criteria. However, the significance of revealed relationships between yield and yield components can be affected by various factors, such as diverse genetic material that is observed, traits included into analysis, environments in which the material is observed, as well as, the applied statistic approach to determine the nature of the relationships itself. The interrelationships of yield and yield components of 15 commercial maize hybrids were observed using the Path and factor analyses. According to results of Path analysis, plant height, ear diameter and grain moisture had highly significant genetic and phenotypic direct effects on grain yield. At the same time, factor analysis points out significant effects of two factors on grain yield. Factor 1 was mostly determined by ear length and number of kernels per row, while grain moisture content, ear and cob diameter mostly determined Factor 2. [Projekat Ministarstva nauke Republike Srbije, br. TR 31068]

This study conforms our hypothesis that there are elite maize inbred lines, which can be considered actual and prestigious as they have not only a property of the water status and a greater grain dry down rate during the maturation period, but also a property of the efficient photosynthetic-fluorescence model that is successfully used in the contemporary processes of breeding, and thereby in the development of new and yielding maize hybrids. Presented results obtained on the dynamics of grain dry down during the maturation period and on photosynthetic-fluorescence parameters (temperature dependence of the chlorophyll delayed fluorescence intensity, the Arrhenius plot for the determination of critical temperatures, i.e. phase transition temperatures and the activation energy) show that properties of the observed inbreeds are based on effects and nature of conformational and functional changes occurring in their thylakoid membranes and other chemical structures of grain tissues. Summarized results of studies on actual and prestigious properties of maize inbreeds will contribute to more exact, rational and expeditious proceedings of contemporary processes of breeding

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