BACKGROUND
In the present paper, a method for differentiation between common and spelt wheat grown in different farming systems (bio-dynamic, ecological, integrated, conventional), based on biomarkers identified from aqueous flour extracts (nitrogen and 14 soluble carbohydrates) was employed.
RESULTS
The identification and determination of soluble carbohydrates contents were carried out using gas chromatography coupled with mass spectrometry (GC-MS) using UV spectrum generated by MS to be compared with WILEY database. Soluble carbohydrates were determined in the peak area between 21.92 and 43.63 min-1 retention time.. The obtained data set was analyzed by multivariate statistical techniques. It was revealed that common wheat exerted much more pronounced tendency to be influenced by the farming system, than spelt wheat.
CONCLUSION
This differentiation was particularly well visualized after subjecting the data set to Principal Component (PCA) and Cluster Analysis (CA). In the PCA graph, all spelt samples were positioned closer to the corresponding control sample, in contrast to the wheat samples which were distributed over a huge area size in the factor space. CA showed that the spelt samples grown under different farming systems were highly similar and grouped into one cluster. Common wheat samples cultivated under organic, bio-dynamic and integrated system were similar and represented the second cluster whereas that cultivated under conventional system was clearly separated from other samples. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.