The effectiveness of breeding depends on the availability of appropriate source material, so it is important to create and study collections and to improve the methods of their evaluation. The aim of the study was to evaluate the winter triticale collection by the elements of productivity and grain quality using the indexes of distance from the "adaptive norm" and to allocate new valuable sources on this basis to create varieties suitable for processing into bioethanol. The study used field, weight, laboratory and mathematical-statistical methods. The results of estimation of collections of winter triticale specimens according to the basic elements of grain productivity structure and grain and starch quality indices with the use of the distance and average indices of the integral value by the method of Litun P. are presented. Samples were evaluated both for the deviation of each trait from the “adaptive norm” and for the complex of traits as a whole. The samples 185, 181, Aristocrat, 101 and 87 with the highest values of the integral evaluation indices on the complex of features (from 1.05 to 1.08) were distinguished. Specimens with significant deviations from the “adaptive norm” on individual grounds were identified among the samples with medium and low values of the integral evaluation indices. The increased values of the indexes of distance from the "adaptive norm" on the content of starch highlighted the samples Solodyuk, Lubomir, 101 and Petrol (1,02–1,04), and the smallest average size of its granules – samples 205, 229, 201, 223, 221, 199, 181, 141, Poliskiy 7, Yasha and Mundo (from 0.91 to 0.97). Selected samples are valuable sources of traits for use in breeding varieties of triticale alcohol-distillate use
winter triticale; collection specimens; elements of productivity structure; grain quality indicators; distance indices