Agronomic Performance and Nutritional Value of Wheat Genotypes: Insights from a Multivariate Approach

In this study, 20 winter wheat genotypes developed by three Serbian breeding institutions were evaluated to assess their genetic potential for yield-related traits, protein content and amino acid composition. The study aimed to quantify variation among genotypes and to identify genotypes with favorable combinations of agronomic performance and nutritional quality using a multi-trait approach. Considerable variation was observed among the genotypes. ‘Pobeda’ and ‘Kompas’ showed consistently high grain yield per plant across the two growing seasons. The highest protein content was recorded in ‘KG-58’ (15.37%), followed by ‘Lepenica’ (14.38%) and ‘Rana niska’ (13.98%). ‘Stepa’, ‘KG-78’, ‘Ravanica’, ‘Jasenica’, and ‘Levčanka’ exhibited high contents of non-essential (>60 g 100 g−1 protein) and essential amino acids (>32 g 100 g−1 protein), and belonged to the same cluster for both amino acid groups. Lysine was the most limiting essential amino acid (amino acid score, AAS = 0.67), while phenylalanine + tyrosine had the highest score (2.05). ‘Ravanica’, ‘Jasenica’, ‘Levčanka’, and ‘KG-78’ showed the highest lysine AAS, highlighting their potential for improving lysine content in wheat breeding. The multi-trait genotype–ideotype distance index (MGIDI) identified ‘Sila’, ‘Pobeda’, and ‘Partizanka’ as the closest to the agronomic ideotype, characterized by high values for all evaluated agronomic traits, while ‘KG-75’, ‘KG-78’, and ‘Jasenica’ were selected based on their essential amino acid composition. These selected genotypes may serve as valuable genetic resources for crossing and the development of wheat varieties with high yield and improved nutritional quality.