Wheat is rightfully considered one of the most ancient cereal plants belonging to the class of monocots and the flowering division.
Description of the cereal
Absolutely all plant varieties existing today have the main characteristics characteristic of all. The height of the stem of wheat varies from 30 to 150 cm. The stems are extremely erect, hollow and at the same time with clearly visible nodes.
Most often, as practice shows, about ten stems grow from one plant in most cases. If you look at a photo of wheat, you will notice that the width of its leaves is about 2 cm. Their shape is flat, often linear, and also with additional veins arranged in parallel.
If you decide to touch the wheat varieties, you will notice that its leaves are quite rough. The root system of this plant is fibrous.
Wheat varieties
If we talk about wheat varieties, the first thing worth noting is their incredible diversity. Plants have a truly complex classification, which includes various additional species, sections and about a dozen intergeneric and even intrageneric hybrids.
At the same time, most plant growers, of course, know winter wheat more than other types. Nevertheless, wheat can be found: biennial or annual, not only winter, but also spring.
Most often, spring wheat seeds are sown from the beginning of spring to its end. It ripens in about a hundred warm days. It is customary to remove it with the onset of autumn. Spring wheat is much more drought-resistant than winter wheat, and, among other things, has good baking properties.
Winter wheat is usually sown in August. In this case, the wheat yield can be obtained at the beginning of next summer, so you won’t have to wait long.
Most plant growers note that growing wheat of this particular type makes it possible to achieve a larger yield, but it is worth considering that it prefers exclusively those areas where the winter is quite snowy and the climate is generally mild.
Where can wheat be grown?
If you have ever thought about how to germinate wheat, you have probably already learned that it grows almost everywhere, with the exception of the tropics, since the variety of newly bred varieties makes it possible to use almost any not only climatic, but also soil conditions.
The plant is not afraid of heat and is cold-resistant.
What is the difference between wheat and rye?
Wheat and rye are rightfully considered the most popular and at the same time irreplaceable cereal crops.
Despite the fact that outwardly they are quite similar to each other, they also have quite a lot of differences.
- Firstly, rye varieties are not as diverse as wheat varieties.
- Secondly, rye has a narrower scope of application than wheat.
- Thirdly, the grains differ in chemical composition and appearance.
- Fourthly, rye places more serious demands on both the climate and the selected soil.
Many people are interested in wheat at home, or rather the germination of its grains. It’s really quite easy to germinate wheat grains yourself.
- Place the small grain in a quart glass jar (Note that the grain should never take up more than 1/3 or even 1⁄4 of the jar).
- Fill the jar almost to the brim with water.
- Leave the grains for about 7-8 hours.
- Drain the water through cheesecloth, rinse the wheat and add fresh water for another three hours.
Similar steps must be repeated several more times, and then let the water drain and place all the grains back into the jar.
After 24 hours, the sprouts should reach a height of a couple of millimeters and the sprouted grains will be ready for consumption.
Beneficial features
Since wheat is a food crop, it has a huge number of different beneficial properties with which it pleases many customers in stores. This is the cereal that occupies a significant place in the production of most countries.
Thanks to wheat flour, a wide variety of pasta, as well as bread and confectionery products are prepared. Wheat has also been used in the preparation of beer for the past few decades.
Photo of wheat
There is no completely reliable information about the origin of wheat. Most of the evidence agrees that the einkorn wheat currently grown was obtained from some wild cereal that grew in the arid countries of Asia Minor. Cultivated eminkorn is generally considered the ancestor of the various varieties of wheat that exist today, since it closely resembles the wild varieties of wheat found in the mountainous regions of Syria and Palestine. In these same areas, coarse plants such as einkorn and einkorn wheat and many wild cereals are still found.
For a correct understanding of the terminology, we consider it necessary to adhere to the names of chaffy wheat proposed by prof. K. A. Flakeberger and approved academician. N.I. Vavilov and the famous Soviet geneticist Yu.A. Filipchenko. Einkorn Tr. monococcum (Einkorn - in German, small spelt - in English, engrain - in French, spelta minor - in Italian; in Georgian known as “asli”) - one of the oldest chaffy wheats of the mountainous regions of Asia Minor, the Balkans , Transcaucasia and Southern Europe. Actually, we call spelled emmer (Triticum dicoccum), and this ancient Russian word is also known in a number of other (except the RSFSR) republics. This wheat is used as a cereal raw material. As for spelled chaffy wheat, it is not and has not been cultivated on the territory of the USSR.
Therefore, Percival believes that the wheat from which baking flour is now produced originated by hybridization from wheat such as eminkorn and wild cereals. Metz and Yasny described some species of wheat that are less common than common bread wheat and species such as Polish, dwarf and durum wheat.
There is no consensus among scientists regarding the place and time of origin of wheat, as well as where it was first cultivated, but one thing is firmly established that many centuries before the appearance of documentary historical materials, different types of wheat played a large role in the nutrition of the population of the Mediterranean. According to Weaver and Takahashi, for some time barley was grown on a larger scale than wheat and was apparently considered more suitable for human nutrition. However, wheat was next in production in the Mediterranean regions, and in fact it played such an important role in the agriculture of the Roman Empire that the latter is often referred to as the “wheat” empire. The great migration of peoples from the north was the reason that for some time in the Mediterranean, wheat was replaced by rye. In the Middle Ages, rye as a food crop in Europe was more important than the different types of wheat found at that time. The share of wheat in the total amount of grain used for food needs was significantly higher than its share in the total volume of grain production. This was facilitated by the fact that barley and rye were used for feed purposes, but it was unlikely that wheat was fed to animals in any significant quantities. Wheat at that time was also the leading crop in domestic and international trade, and other grain crops were almost completely excluded from this turnover.
Over time, wheat began to be considered as the best grain crop, and to such an extent that the provision of wheat for feeding the population became, as it were, an indicator of a high degree of civilization. The quality of wheat for bread production continued to improve, and bread in one form or another became a very important food in the Western world. As Boals puts it, wheat acquired symbolic significance, representing economic prosperity and political stability. For many centuries, peoples who had sufficient supplies of wheat were considered to be well supplied with food.
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Wheat is one of the most ancient cultivated plants. Types of cultivated wheat originate, according to scientists, from three wild cereals that grew in Asia Minor, Southern Europe and North Africa. There are many versions and assumptions about the history of the origin and age of wheat.
Wheat was one of the first domesticated cereals, it was cultivated at the very beginning of the Neolithic revolution. It is safe to say that ancient people could use wild wheat for food, but the peculiarity of wild wheat is the fact that the grains immediately fall off after ripening, and they cannot be collected. Probably for this reason, ancient people used unripe grains for food. On the contrary, grains of cultivated wheat remain in the ear until they are knocked out during threshing. Analysis of ancient spikelets found by archaeologists shows that in the period from 10,200 to 6,500 years ago, wheat was gradually domesticated - the percentage of grains carrying a gene that gives resistance to shedding gradually increased. As you can see, the process of domestication took a very long time and the transition to the modern state occurred more likely under the influence of random factors, and was not the result of targeted selection. Other researchers note that the selection of the first varieties was carried out according to the strength of the ear, which should withstand the harvest, resistance to lodging and grain size. This soon led to the loss of cultivated wheat's ability to reproduce without human help, since its ability to distribute grains in the wild was severely limited.
Researchers identify three areas in the northern Levant where the emergence of cultivated wheat most likely occurred: near the settlements of Jericho, Iraq ed-Dubb and Tel Aswad, and somewhat later in southeastern Turkey.
The spread of cultivated wheat from the region of its origin is noted already in the 9th millennium BC. e., when it appeared in the Aegean Sea region. Wheat reached India no later than 6000 BC. e., and Ethiopia, the Iberian Peninsula and the British Isles - no later than 5000 BC. e. Another thousand years later, wheat appeared in the People's Republic of China (PRC). It is believed that the domestication of wheat may have occurred in different regions, but wild wheat does not grow everywhere, and there is no archaeological evidence of its early domestication anywhere except the Middle East.
In the 7th millennium BC. e. wheat crops became known to the tribes of the Nea Nicomedia culture in Northern Greece and Macedonia, and also spread to Northern Mesopotamia - the Hassun culture, the Jarmo culture.
By the 6th millennium BC. e. wheat culture spread to the southern regions (Bug-Dniester culture, Karanovo culture in Bulgaria, Körös culture in Hungary, in the Körös river basin).
In the 6th millennium BC. e. tribes of the Thassian culture brought the wheat culture to Northeast Africa (Middle Egypt).
By the beginning of our era, the plant was known throughout almost the entire territory of Asia and Africa; During the era of the Roman conquests, cereals began to be cultivated in different parts of Europe. In the 16th-17th centuries, European colonists brought wheat to South and then North America, and at the turn of the 18th-19th centuries - to Canada and Australia. This is how wheat became widespread.
The question of the transition of ancient tribes of people from gathering and hunting to agriculture has been troubling the minds of scientists for a long time. It is simply incomprehensible why, in places where fruits grew in abundance for food and where people had enough of this food, they suddenly began to lead a sedentary life and hard labor in the fields. They began to get their food literally by the sweat of their brow! For what? Why, when gathering and hunting provided people with plenty of food, did they switch to agriculture?
After all, you need to plow the field, sow the seeds, grow it for more than one month, then harvest the crop, thresh the grain, store it…. And that is not all! What about culinary grain processing?! How much additional effort is needed to plow the field, sow it, harvest it, and only then cook food. Huge labor costs! What about drought? What about crop failures? All this was quite risky... 
Hunting and gathering gave a person additional drive and pleasure, while monotonous work in the field with long-term results could not give him those additional positive emotions that had become entrenched in his archetype from generation to generation.
A person tied to one place has lost more than just pleasure. Often his hard labor was not rewarded with a rich harvest and he had to starve, because the resources from additional gathering and hunting in one place were rapidly decreasing.
Why did they need this? I don’t think they were so stupid as to come up with such a life for themselves for the sake of the “development of civilization,” which they didn’t even think about!
The famous phrase “man is lazy by nature” actually has a deep basis. Man, like any other living system, strives for the desired result, trying to expend as little energy as possible. Therefore, in order to provide himself with food, it simply does not make sense for him to give up hunting and gathering and move on to the exhausting work of a farmer. 
The geography of the origins of agriculture is also interesting. All foci are located in mountain-tropical and subtropical areas, similar in climatic conditions to the Mediterranean. Himalayas, India, China, Africa and South America. And there simply was NO shortage of food supply here!
Where did people get the seeds from?! According to the research of our geneticist Nikolai Vavilov, there is “wild” wheat, durum and soft wheat. But it turns out that “wild” wheat is not the ancestor of the wheat varieties known to us. Moreover, each type of wheat has its own area of origin. (or distribution?). Vavilov, as a geneticist, practically proved with his research that all types of wheat are so far from each other in their chromosomes that they are not amenable to any selection.
From which it follows that hard and soft varieties of wheat appeared on Earth not as a result of the degeneration (selection) of “wild” wheat, but somehow miraculously immediately fell into the hands of farmers.
The same riddles apply to barley. With the unusual appearance of barley in early agriculture, “wild” barley is completely absent from the Earth.
Ancient legends clearly answer these questions. Our ancestors were absolutely sure that all this happened on the initiative and under the control of the Gods!
So in these legends it is precisely stated that:
Corn was brought by God Quetzalcoatl to Mexico, wheat was brought to Egypt by God Osiris, the Sumerians were taught by Enki and Enlil, the Chinese by the “Heavenly Geniuses,” and the Tibetans by the “Lords of Wisdom.”
And nowhere! Nowhere in the legends do people write that they themselves, empirically, figured this out.
From everything it follows that man had no need for this transition to agriculture, but was needed by someone more powerful, whom people called Gods. They saw them and, most importantly, were forced to obey their will.
Why did the Gods need this? There is a version to encourage progress. After all, a sedentary lifestyle requires housing, tools of production, stimulates the development of social relations, etc.
But there is another option. The Sumerian texts say that the Gods created man in order to entrust their labors to him. Here you go!
Continuation in the articles - What did the gods give?, Alien landing, Blue blood, Similarity of language,
Wheat is the leading grain crop in many countries of the world. It belongs to the genus of herbaceous annual plants or bluegrass. Wheat is grown to produce flour, which is subsequently used to make baked goods and pasta. This crop is often used as feed or for making vodka or beer.
Unfortunately, scientists do not have a consensus regarding the homeland of wheat. Different regions can be considered centers of spread of this culture around the planet. We only know that people have been growing wheat for a very long time. People began to cultivate this plant as one of the first of the genus of cereals. According to most scientists, wheat was cultivated at the very beginning of the Neolithic revolution. That is, approximately 10-8 thousand BC. e.
Features of selection
Scientists do not know for certain where the homeland of wheat is located. However, it is known that a distinctive feature of wild cereals is that when ripe, their seeds fall off very quickly. Even if ancient people could eat grains of uncultivated wheat, it was only when they were unripe. Collecting the seeds of this plant that have fallen to the ground would be an unreasonably tedious task.
Of course, this feature of wheat at the very beginning of its cultivation caused serious inconvenience to farmers. It is believed that the selection of this crop at first was most likely aimed specifically at increasing the resistance of ears to shedding.
The grains of modern wheat are separated only during threshing. Because of this, the culture has almost completely lost the ability to reproduce naturally. Wheat exists on our planet today mainly thanks to human efforts.
Main varieties
All currently existing wheat varieties are classified into two large groups: hard and soft. Historians believe that the ancient Romans and Greeks, and quite possibly also representatives of more ancient civilizations, knew the difference between these two types.
Flour made from soft wheat does not contain too much gluten and absorbs little water. It is used mainly for the production of confectionery products. Durum flour contains a lot of gluten. This product is used in the food industry for baking bread.
There are soft and hard varieties depending on the region of growth. The first prefers a more humid climate. Soft varieties are grown nowadays, for example, in Western Europe and Australia. In Russia, 95% of all cultivated wheat is soft varieties. In the countries of the former CIS, this type of crop is also mainly grown.
Durum wheat prefers a more continental and dry climate. Such varieties are cultivated, for example, in Canada, North Africa, the USA, and Argentina.
Where did the wild ancestor grow: hypotheses
Scientists have differing opinions about where the homeland of wheat is located. Some researchers believe that all modern species of this agricultural crop have one genetic ancestor. Other scientists believe that soft and durum wheat evolved from different wild ancestors. In particular, this was the opinion held by the famous Russian geneticist N.I. Vavilov.
Home of soft wheat
This type of culture, according to many scientists, originated from a wild ancestor that once grew in nature in Transcaucasia. At the same time, some researchers believe that the birthplace of wheat is Armenia. Other historians believe that the wild ancestor of the soft variety of this crop once grew in Georgia.
Origin of durum wheat
This variety, according to most researchers, originated from the countries of the Abyssinian center - Sudan, Eritrea, Ethiopia. At the moment, many scientists consider it not only the birthplace of durum wheat, but also the world center of many other cultivated plants. The humidity in this region of the planet is not too high. However, since ancient times it has been almost ideally suited for agriculture. Cultivated plants in the Ethiopian highlands can be grown year-round.
Another hypothesis
Many scientists believe that wheat originated from a wild grain that once grew in Turkey. According to some researchers, this country is the birthplace of wheat, both durum and soft. At the same time, the most likely source of spread of this culture is, according to scientists, the outskirts of the city of Diyarbakir.
Also, some researchers believe that in different regions of the planet the cultivation of wheat occurred almost simultaneously and independently of each other. However, in most regions of the world, unfortunately, no wild cereals similar to the ancestor of this plant have been found.
Spreading
Scientists do not have a consensus regarding the homeland of wheat. But it is known for certain that this crop has already been grown:
in 9 thousand BC e. in the Aegean region;
in 6 thousand BC e. in India, Bulgaria, Hungary;
in 5 thousand BC e. on the British islands;
in 4 thousand BC e. in China.
By the beginning of our era, this plant was known throughout almost the entire territory of Africa and Asia. During the era of the Roman conquests, wheat began to be cultivated in many European countries. This culture was brought to South America in the 16th-17th centuries. It appeared in Canada and Australia in the 18th-19th centuries.