Environmental modification of wheat grain protein accumulation and associated processing quality: a case study of China

Wheat (Triticum aestivum L.) is one of the most important agricultural crops in China. In addition to the yield, the grain quality of wheat is central to the well-being of humans. Because of its high grain protein content (GPC), wheat is extensively applied in many foods and industrial uses. Currently, increasing grain quality is becoming a widely discussed topic in crop sciences. Wheat quality is directly affected by diverse environmental factors. However, the mechanisms of environmental effects are not fully elucidated, and experimental results are often inconsistent between regions or over years. In this review, we present the zoning of Chinese wheat quality based on key environmental variables and analyze the impacts of greatly varied environments on wheat GPC and related processing quality by summarizing the results of numerous field experiments. More importantly, this paper provides a number of potential strategies to increase the GPC and protein-based grain processing quality. Our objectives are to determine the general principles underlying how the environment affects wheat quality, facilitate further investigations of the environmental mechanisms that affect GPC, and thereby achieve good processing quality.