Wheat was introduced in South Africa at the middle of the 17th century upon the arrival of the Dutch in the Cape in 1652. It is the second important cereal crop in terms of the area planted and production. In South Africa, most of the wheat produced is used for milling and baking. Bread making quality is one of the most important characteristics for wheat breeding. Furtado et al. (2016) identified a novel gene named the wheat bread making ( wbm ) gene which is linked with good bread-making quality. They reported genotypes with high wbm expression all had good bread-making quality.

In order to understand how the wbm gene is associated with baking quality in South African wheat germplasm, 53 commercial bread wheat cultivars from three different breeding programs (irrigated spring, winter rainfall dryland and summer rainfall dryland) were screened for the presence of the wbm gene. Preliminary data show that about 20% of the cultivars have the gene. The presence or absence of the gene in different genetic backgrounds will now be compared for quality characteristics, as well as for protein characteristics as measured by reverse phase and size exclusion high performance liquid chromatography and proteomics analysis.