wheat, cereal plant of the genus Triticum of the family Gramineae (grass grass, any plant of the family Gramineae, an important and widely distributed group of vascular plants, having an extraordinary range of adaptation. Numbering approximately 600 genera and 9,000 species, the grasses form the climax vegetation (see ecology ) in great
..... Click the link for more information. family), a major food and an important commodity on the world grain market.

Wheat Varieties and Their Uses

The wheat plant is an annual, probably derived from a perennial; the ancestry of and precise distinctions between species are no longer always clear. For its early growth wheat thrives best in cool weather. Among the more ancient, and now less frequently cultivated, species are einkorn (T. monococcum), emmer (T. dicoccum), and spelt (T. spelta). Modern wheat varieties are usually classified as winter wheats (fall-planted and unusually winter hardy for grain crops) and spring wheats. Approximately three fourths of the wheat grown in the United States is winter wheat.

Flour from hard wheats (varieties evolved for the most part from T. aestivum) contains a high percentage of gluten gluten, mixture of proteins present in the cereal grains. The long molecules of gluten, insoluble in water, are strong and flexible and form many cross linkages.
..... Click the link for more information. and is used to make bread and fine cakes. The hardest-kerneled wheat is durum (T. durum); its flour is used in the manufacture of macaroni, spaghetti, and other pasta products. White- and soft-wheat varieties are paler and have starchy kernels; their flour is preferred for piecrust, biscuits, and breakfast foods. Wheat is used in the manufacture of whiskey and beer, and the grain, the bran (the residue from milling), and the vegetative plant parts make valuable livestock feed. Before the introduction of corn into Europe, wheat was the principal source of starch for sizing paper and cloth.

Diseases and Pests

Wheat is susceptible to many pests and diseases, the more destructive including rust rust, in botany, name for various parasitic fungi of the order Uredinales and for the diseases of plants that they cause. Rusts form reddish patches of spores on the host plant. About 7,000 species are known.
..... Click the link for more information. , bunt (see smut smut, name for an order of parasitic fungi (Ustilaginales) and the various diseases of plants caused by them. Smuts produce sootlike masses of spores on the host.
..... Click the link for more information. ), and the Hessian fly Hessian fly, European gall gnat , Phytophaga destructor, so named because it was first observed in America shortly after the Hessian troops landed on Long Island in the American Revolution. It is one of the most destructive pests of wheat, barley, and rye.
..... Click the link for more information. and chinch bug chinch bug, small North American bug , Blissus leucopterus, of the seed bug family. It feeds on small grains, corn, and other grasses, sucking the plant juices and doing much damage to crops, particularly in the Midwest. The adults, about 1/8 in. (3.
..... Click the link for more information. . All wheat-producing countries carry on breeding experiments to improve existing varieties or to obtain new ones with such dominant characteristics as disease resistance, increased hardiness under specific environments, and greater yield.

Wheat Production Today

The great wheat-producing countries of the world are the United States, China, and Russia; extensive wheat growing is carried on also in India, W Europe, Canada, Argentina, and Australia. In the United States the wheat belt covers the Ohio Valley, the prairie states, and E Oregon and Washington; Kansas leads the states in production. Large-scale mechanized farming and continued planting of wheat without regard to crop rotation have exhausted the soil of large areas. High-yield wheat, one of the grains resulting from the Green Revolution Green Revolution, term referring mainly to dramatic increases in cereal-grain yields in many developing countries beginning in the late 1960s, due largely to use of genetically improved varieties.
..... Click the link for more information. , requires optimal growth conditions, e.g., adequate irrigation and high concentrations of fertilizer.

History

Wheat was one of the first of the grains domesticated by humans (see grain grain, in agriculture, term referring to the caryopsis, or dry fruit , of a cereal grass . The term is also applied to the seedlike fruits of buckwheat and of certain other plants and is used collectively for any plant that bears such fruits.
..... Click the link for more information. ). Its cultivation began in the Neolithic period Neolithic period or New Stone Age. The term neolithic is used, especially in archaeology and anthropology, to designate a stage of cultural evolution or technological development characterized by the use of stone tools, the existence of
..... Click the link for more information. . Bread wheat is known to have been grown in the Nile valley by 5000 B.C., and its apparently later cultivation in other regions (e.g., the Indus and Euphrates valleys by 4000 B.C., China by 2500 B.C., and England by 2000 B.C.) indicate that it spread from Mediterranean centers of domestication. The civilizations of W Asia and of the European peoples have been largely based on wheat, while rice rice, cereal grain (Oryza sativa) of the grass family (Graminae), probably native to the deltas of the great Asian rivers—the Ganges, the Chang (Yangtze), and the Tigris and Euphrates.
..... Click the link for more information. has been more important in E Asia. Since agriculture began, wheat has been the chief source of bread for Europe and the Middle East. It was introduced into Mexico by the Spaniards c.1520 and into Virginia by English colonists early in the 17th cent.

Classification

Wheat is classified in the division Magnoliophyta Magnoliophyta (măg'nōlēŏf`ətə)
..... Click the link for more information. , class Liliopsida, order Cyperales, family Poaceae (Gramineae).

Bibliography

See publications issued by the U.S. Dept. of Agriculture; P. T. Dondlinger, The Book of Wheat (1908, repr. 1973); L. T. Evans and W. J. Peacock, ed. Wheat Science: Today and Tomorrow (1981).

wheat

Any of various cereal grasses in the genus Triticum of the Poaceae (or Gramineae) family, one of the oldest and most important of the cereal crops. More of the world's farmland is devoted to wheat than to any other food crop; China is the largest wheat producer. The plant has long, slender leaves, hollow stems in most varieties, and flowers grouped together in spikelets. Of the thousands of varieties known, the most important are T. aestivum, used to make bread; T. durum, used in making pasta; and T. compactum (club wheat), a softer type used for cake, crackers, cookies, pastries, and household flours. Winter wheat (sown in fall) and spring wheat (sown in spring or, where winters are mild, sometimes fall) are the two major types. The greatest portion of wheat flour is used for breadmaking. Small quantities are used in the production of starch, malt, gluten, alcohol, and other products. Inferior and surplus wheats and various milling by-products are used for livestock feeds.

wheat

any annual or biennial grass of the genus Triticum, native to the Mediterranean region and W Asia but widely cultivated, having erect flower spikes and light brown grains

wheat (redirected from wheat engorgement)

Wheat Varieties and Their Uses

Diseases and Pests

Wheat Production Today

History

Classification

Bibliography

wheat

wheat
(redirected from wheat engorgement)