ASABE Technical Library - Abstract

Abstract. Under the pressure of the feed cost and the progress of production technique and application of feed enzyme preparation, many feed enterprises raise the wheat fraction in the formulations of livestock feed. To improve the quality and consistency of pellet feed products, the study on processing properties of wheat as a food material is imperative. On the basis of consulting a large number of literatures, six physicochemical indexes of wheat which affect feed pelleting mostly were summed up, including crude protein content, crude fat content, moisture content, bulk density, grinding particle size and pasting property. All of pelleting properties were tested on 42 wheat samples collected from Henan, Hebei and Shandong province. The parameters of pasting property (peak viscosity, trough viscosity, breakdown viscosity, final viscosity and setback viscosity) of wheat samples from different provinces showed greater degree of variation than other indexes. Wheat cultivars from different provinces presented significant differences in mean values of selected pelleting properties. There were six indexes including crude fat content, grinding particle size, peak viscosity, trough viscosity, final viscosity and setback viscosity presenting significant differences between Hebei province and Henan province. Wheat samples from Shandong province showed significant difference with Henan province in grinding particle size and with Hebei province in breakdown viscosity and setback viscosity. According to the results of principle component analysis, four principle components (the total cumulative was 87.46%) were extracted. Hierarchical Cluster Method was performed to analyze four principal components, and all the wheat samples were divided into five categories. The pelleting properties and areal distribution of different categories were summarized to provide scientific data judgment for purchasing feedstuff in practical production process.