An insight into the impact of climate factors associated with altitude on wheat volatiles' fingerprints at harvest using multivariate statistical analysis.

Background: Climate changes associated with global warming are increasingly affecting the quality of cultivated crops. Cultivation at different altitudes and similar latitudes may offer an extraordinarily useful opportunity to obtain a diversificated dataset of climate variables and to further investigate their effect on crop quality. This study evaluated the effect of climate indices - temperature, rainfall precipitation and solar radiation data - on commercial parameters and the volatile organic compound (VOC) profile of wheat at harvest.

Results: Three common and durum wheat varieties, including two heritage wheats, were sown in experimental fields sited at three altitudes for 3 years consecutively, and they were analyzed for their yield, grading parameters, and VOC profiles. The datasets were processed by partial least squares regression (PLS-R) and the results indicate that summer days (SU25) and diurnal temperature range (ΔT) are the climate indices mainly responsible for the VOC profile changes in both common and durum wheat. Accumulated growth degree days (GDD), consecutive dry days (CDD), and accumulated solar radiation (ASR) induced species-specific responses. Terpenes represented the chemical class of VOCs most affected by stresses, followed by ketones and alcohols, which were affected by CDD, GDD, and ASR.

Conclusion: This study showed a selective response of wheat to abiotic stresses associated with climate variables in terms of VOC synthesis. Its findings may be relevant in several fields, from plant ecology to agronomy and food quality, with implications for local economic strategies. © 2023 Society of Chemical Industry.