American research | New varieties show potential but aren’t ready for millers
Craig Morris has been seeking the answer to an intriguing technical question for the last 15 years: is it possible to make a durum wheat variety with soft kernels?
The wheat expert with Washington State University has determined the answer is yes, but few durum growers are aware of the achievement.
“I could probably count on my two hands the number of growers that actually know about this stuff,” said Morris, who is also director of the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Western Wheat Quality Laboratory in Pullman, Washington.
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That could soon change because Morris has developed several soft kernel varieties, including a soft version of Strongfield, one of the most popular durum varieties in Saskatchewan.
The soft durum has potential to revolutionize pasta making. It has outperformed conventional hard durum varieties in pasta making, and has shown to perform well as a baking flour in test kitchens.
Companies are interested in commercializing Morris’ soft durum, but he is waiting for patent approval.
Morris began working on soft durum wheat in the 1990s because he wanted to challenge the conventional notions about durum wheat, particularly how it is processed and how it is used.
Durum has the hardest kernels of all the wheat classes and millers rarely convert it into flour because it requires too much energy. Instead, they grind it into semolina, which is used primarily to make pasta and couscous.
Morris said the process has led to the assumption that hard durum kernels are essential for high quality pasta.
“That’s the conventional view of the world, and it’s based on our immediate experience…. It’s absolutely incorrect,” he said.
“Soft durum actually makes better pasta than normal durum. It’s just that soft durum has never existed before … so we don’t have any experience that would allow us to think outside the box.”
Morris has grown soft durum in Arizona and on the northern Plains for a number of years, including a 20 acre field in Montana.
A commercial mill converted the soft durum from the Montana field into flour, and master bakers with Cargill tested it by making pizza dough, bagels, croissants and muffins.
Durum flour, with its high gluten content, nutty taste and yellowish colour, “kills as a pizza crust,” Morris told Wheat Life, the Washington Association of Wheat Growers magazine.
“Because you have soft kernels, it mills into a nice soft flour that has low starch damage,” Morris said.
“Without exception, it performs equal to and in almost all cases better than conventional durum semolina…. In some senses it’s better than bread flour.”
Soft durum kernels are also easier to turn into pasta than hard durum because the process requires less water.
“You can absolutely say that soft durum is superior for pasta,” he said.
Morris said there are no differences in yield, crop height and disease tolerance between hard and soft durum.
Therefore, it makes sense for growers to adopt soft durum because it’s more versatile than durum with hard kernels, he added.
“Right now, you could argue that durum production is limited by demand,” he said.
“And demand is directly linked to how much pasta people eat…. If we can expand the culinary uses of durum … that should drive demand.”
Danny Singh, an Agriculture Canada durum breeder in Swift Current, Sask., said western Canadian durum is milled into flour, but its use is limited to flatbread in South Asia, particularly India, Pakistan and Bangladesh.
The crop could play a role in global food security if growers switch over to soft durum because high corn yields and profitability have driven wheat onto marginal cropland over the last decade, Morris said.
“It’s actually a global phenomenon. Maize is pushing wheat into more remote areas.”
A soft durum wheat that can be milled into flour may alleviate global food shortages because durum has higher tolerance for drought, soil salinity and a semi-arid climate, he added.
However, Morris conceded that the crop will not become an overnight success.
He said companies have invested millions of dollars in existing milling technology and won’t abandon those mills just because a Washington state wheat breeder has developed a superior variety.
“There is a hell of lot of capital sitting around in durum mills and pasta plants,” Morris said.
“Nobody is going to walk away from flour mills overnight and start doing it a different way. So, how we ramp it (soft durum) up is going to be quite interesting.”
