ABSTRACT
Pre-harvest sprouting is widely recognized as being a significant problem in the production of quality cereal grain in many areas of the world. This chapter includes members of all the commonly recognized species and races of wheat, to characterize tolerance in relation to the range already established in the hexaploid bread wheats and, in addition, to compare wheat with the alternate winter cereal crops such as barley and triticale which are currently cultivated in Australia. Several accessions of each of the commonly recognised species and races of Triticum were compared with respect to pre-harvest sprouting tolerance. A large proportion of the barleys sprouted more readily than the better bread wheats, although there were some barleys with good tolerance to sprouting. Falling number values gave a better differentiation within the barley samples than did visual sprouting. Falling numbers of triticale samples at maturity did not appear to be related to grain germinability or the tendency to sprout in the ear.
