Rheological quality of wheat dough prepared from 189 varieties of flour samples (wheat harvest 1998 and 1999) and 140 commercial flour samples (wheat harvest 2000 and 2001) was assessed using a farinograph, extensigraph, alveograph and a NIR spectrograph. The prediction quality was evaluated by the correlation coefficient between the measured and predicted values from cross and independent validation. A statistically significant dependence between predicted and measured values (with probability higher than 99 %) was observed in all rheological characteristics in cross validation. Out of farinograph parameters only water absorption, dough time development and mixing tolerance and of alveograph characteristics only dough elasticity and energy were successfully predicted by independent validation. Predictions of extensigraph characteristics were not statistically significant due to a small number of tested samples.