The CerealMed research project (Enhancing diversity in Mediterranean cereal farming systems 2020-2023) is aimed implementing a biodiversity-based wheat cropping system in the Mediterranean area. CerealMed includes 11 research partners active in 7 countries around the Mediterranean basin (Italy, Spain, Morocco, Egypt, Lebanon, Turkey, and Greece), to bring together expertise and innovation in genetics, agronomy, microbiology, and agro-socioeconomics by an integrated approach. In the frame of the CerealMed project, a population of nearly 130 introgression lines (genome of T. dicoccoides introgressed into durum wheat PR22D89) and 60 T. aestivum subspecies have been evaluated during 2020-2021 growing season in a field trial in two locations. The subspecies collection of T. aestivum includes 59 accessions: 8 ssp. aestivum, 23 ssp. compactum, 12 ssp. macha, 10 ssp. spelta, 5 ssp. sphaerococcum, 1 ssp. vavilovii. The panel includes cultivars, landraces and wild relatives coming from all over the world.

Seeds were harvested at maturity, grinded and subjected to determination of a number of quality traits including total carotenoid content by using a Near Infrared Reflectance (NIR) spectroscopy. The total carotenoid content was also evaluated through spectrophotometer method after extraction with water-saturated 1-butanol (AACC 14-50). A very good correlation was found between the two methods. Interestingly, the analysis revealed a wide variation for the traits considered and in particular for carotenoid content also for hexaploid genotypes, even if with values lower compared to the durum wheat lines, as expected. Thanks to this phenotypic variation, the measurements obtained with the spectrophotometric method allowed to obtain a very accurate calibration curve for the subsequent high-throughput analysis by NIR for total carotenoid content. Moreover, a significant difference between the two parents of the introgression lines for quality traits as protein content, SDS (sodium dodecyl sulphate sedimentation volume), and carotenoid content was found. Interesting results were also found for traits assessed on the whole seeds, as thousand kernel weight (TKW), PPO (polyphenol oxidase) activity, involved in seed browning, and in colour parameters assessed through image analysis, for future mapping in this segregating population.