New models to predict Beta Glucan Content in Barley
15 Jan 2010
U. Tiwari and E. Cummins
β-Glucan is a bio-active component of cereal grains with many potentials uses and health-promoting benefits. Recent research has focused on improving the nutritional value of food by increasing human exposure to β-glucan. This study looks at the development of a farm-level baseline model (including scenario analysis) to evaluate the impact of pre-harvest stages (including genotypic factors, environmental conditions, agronomic factors and storage) on β-glucan levels in barley.
Monte Carlo simulation techniques were employed to model various stages in pre-harvest processes and to simulate the factors influencing the level of β-glucan content in both hulled barley (HB) and hull-less barley (HLB) cultivars. The baseline model found that the mean simulated level of β-glucan was 39.64 g kg-1 and 54.89 g kg-1 for HB and HLB barley cultivars, respectively.
A sensitivity analysis highlighted that cultivar selection was the most important parameter in determining the final β-glucan (correlation coefficients of 0.66 and 0.77 for HB and HLB, respectively), highlighting that cultivar selection is more important in determining the final β-glucan content than any of the agronomical factors analysed. The scenario analysis highlighted the importance of harvest date (scenario 2) and storage conditions (scenario 3) with a potential 30.4 % decrease in β-glucan if harvesting is carried out early during physiological maturity (i.e. at growth stage 92) and a potential 23.7 % and 23.6 % increase in β-glucan if storage time is minimised for both HB and HLB respectively. This study highlights the influence of pre-harvest operations on β-glucan content and thus allows strategies to be identified to influence β-glucan content in barley products.
For further details on this study please see:
Tiwari, U.; Cummins, E., A predictive model of the effects of genotypic, pre and
post harvest stages on barley β-glucan levels. Journal of the Science of Food
and Agriculture,2008, 88, 2277-2287.
