Investigation of structural properties of dough prepared from wheat flour damaged by sunn pest

Wheat has attracted the attention of both consumers and researchers throughout history due to its ability to meet daily nutritional needs and the processability of the elements it contains. In this context, the present study investigated the physicochemical, technological, and rheological quality parameters of the bread wheat cultivars Bayraktar-2000 and Selenivka Odeska (S. Odeska), cultivated in Tunceli Province during the 2024 harvest season. It was determined that technological quality parameters, such as gluten index, sedimentation, and delayed sedimentation, decreased as the proportion of wheat kernels damaged by sunn pest in the flour increased. Doughs prepared from flours produced by incorporating 3%, 4.5%, and 6% sunn pest–damaged kernels into both wheat cultivars were subjected to a comprehensive analysis including textural parameters (stickiness, hardness, extensibility), rheological characteristics (storage modulus, loss modulus, complex modulus, complex viscosity), ATR-FTIR (Attenuated total reflectance Fourier transform infrared) spectral imaging, and an extensive CIELab color evaluation. The thousand kernel weights of Bayraktar-2000 and S. Odeska wheat cultivars were determined to be 43.32±0.64 g and 32.6±1.65 g, respectively. The wet gluten contents were determined as 23.3±1.69% for Bayraktar-2000 and 36.4±2.21% for S. Odeska. An increase in the proportion of sunn pest–damaged kernels was found to result in higher dough stickiness values. Resistance to extension, an important parameter in dough processing, reached its highest value in the control group of the S. Odeska cultivar (1.19 N ± 0.05), with a progressive decline observed as the proportion of sunn pest–damaged kernels increased. Dynamic oscillation (rheological) testing revealed that the elastic modulus of the dough samples was higher than the viscous modulus, and that throughout the frequency sweep test, the values of elastic modulus, viscous modulus, and complex modulus increased, while the complex viscosity decreased. When the FT-IR spectra of the dough and gluten of the samples were examined, it was determined that the peak intensities of both the amide-I band around 1635 cm-1 and the amide-II band at 1537 cm-1 were higher in the gluten samples. In addition, when the FT-IR graph was examined, it was seen that the peak intensity of amide-I and amide-II increased as the sunn pest absorption rate increased. When the color values of the grain, flour and dough of both wheat samples were examined, it was determined that the highest L* brightness value was in Bayraktar-2000 dough, the highest yellowness index value was in S. Odeska dough and the highest whiteness index value was in Bayraktar-2000 flour samples. It was also determined that the L brightness value of wheat grains damaged by Sunn pest was lower than that of health wheat grains. When all values were examined, it was understood that wet gluten, gluten index, sedimentation and sedimentation values of wheat were related to parameters reflecting gluten content and gluten quality such as dough stickiness, hardness and resistance to extension. It has been determined that the amount and quality of gluten are important in both the texture and rheological parameters of the dough, and many parameters are weaker in the Bayraktar-2000 wheat variety. As a result, the effects of the damage caused by sunn pest in the dough were revealed with different parameters and it was determined that it clearly disrupted the parameters such as dough stickiness, hardness and extensibility. It was understood that this trend in texture values coincided with the results of the rheological parameters examined.