RED DEER — Grain that sprouts in the field before harvest creates a domino effect.
It’s downgraded, farmers receive less money and bakers have to make adjustments so bread can rise.
Resistance to pre-harvest sprouting is usually assumed with new varieties, but even the best can sprout when weather conditions are right.
“The weather conditions are conducive to pre-harvest sprouting every year in some production regions of the Prairies and substantial losses can occur,” said plant breeder Ron DePauw of Agriculture Canada at a recent international conference on pre-harvest sprouting of cereals in Red Deer.
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Sprouted grain is a problem for those who sell and mill the grain, said Lisa Nemeth of the Canadian Wheat Board’s marketing and quality assurance division.
She works with customers on how to work with wheat, especially after the 2010 harvest when moist weather degraded crop quality.
Millers can blend wheat with various levels of sprout damage to achieve an acceptable flour quality but it requires careful calculation.
“A mill can handle fluctuations in sprouting and wheat quality as long as they know it is coming.
“As a miller, you have to be very careful and know that when you are blending, you are going to end up with a lower falling number,” she said.
The falling number is a 50-year-old international standard to determine the soundness of wheat, which is primarily influenced by the degree of sprouting in a grain sample.
The number is the amount of time it takes for a steel ball to fall through a flour and water slurry that has been heated to release the starch from water.
In sprouted grain, enzymes are produced that break down the starch. If there is less starch, the slurry is less thick and the ball falls more quickly, giving a lower falling number reading.
Bakers look for a falling number of around 300 seconds. Some with a quick production method can go as low as 250 seconds but a longer fermentation requires a higher number, said Nemeth.
This test is partly related to the presence of a starch-degrading enzyme called alpha-amylase.
“We need to have some alpha-amylase in bakery products in order to get the fermentable sugars for the yeast to work, but when we have a lot of sprout damage, we get too much fermentation happening and we lose the tolerance in the product,” she said.
A higher level of alpha-amylase decreases water absorption and causes a sticky dough.
In large production lines, sticky, gummy dough slows down the works or causes the dough shapes to be irregular.
The bread might rise well but flops over after it is baked or the loaves fall apart. The crust may bubble, or does not hold together well.
Sprouting is also associated with other enzymes that cause soft pasta that may be discoloured or speckled, which customers do not want.
The Canadian Grain Commission is testing damaged durum from 2010 to see its effect on pasta quality.
