Testing Idaho wheat quality
The University of Idaho’s first laboratory for the study of wheat quality was built in 1907 on campus in Moscow. J. Shirley Jones recruited Moscow housewives to help him test gluten content of wheat grown at different locations.
Housewives baked bread using batches of flour milled by Jones and reported their results on a scorecard he provided. It was the first lab of its kind in the Pacific Northwest.
Still, today, central to ever y new variety’s release is its end-use performance, painstakingly measured at the Idaho Wheat Quality Laboratory (IWQL). The Aberdeen facility was first built in 1962 with funding from Idaho wheat growers and the Idaho Legislature and was expanded to 2,280 feet in 2005. UI wheat breeder Robert Zemetra calls it the primary contributor to varietal improvement. “It gave us a way to get our quality data in a more timely manner, which meant that we could make better selections for end-use quality.”
Each year, IWQL cereal chemist Katherine O’Brien and her three technicians evaluate 12,000 to 14,000 individual wheat samples from statewide variety trials, screening them for milling yields, protein levels, and dough-mixing and baking qualities. “Without wheat industry support, I don’t know where we would find funds to do this,” she says.
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