Wheat is a popular cereal crop that is grown in many countries around the world. It belongs to the category of annual herbaceous plants from the Poa family. Wheat is grown to produce flour, which is subsequently used to make baked goods and pasta. It is impossible to determine the exact origin of wheat. However, most scientists are confident that the plant was domesticated at the beginning of the Neolithic revolution.
The history of wheat
Wheat is believed to have originated in the Middle East, in a region called the Fertile Crescent.It includes modern Iran, Israel, Lebanon, Syria and other countries. It was there that people first began eating the wild plant that became the ancestor of modern wheat.
Ancient farmers gradually domesticated this plant by selecting the best seeds. Archaeologists were able to establish that this happened in the 10th millennium BC. The cereal was found in southeastern Turkey.
The cereal has completely changed people's lives. It was dried, ground, boiled and made into cakes. Initially, the grains were eaten raw, but later they began to be ground using stones. Thanks to this, it was possible to obtain flour from which porridge was made.
Soft
This type of wheat appeared in southern Turkey. This happened in the 7th millennium BC. This variety of cereal is the result of cross-pollination of ancient varieties of wheat and wild herbaceous plants. The crop immediately became highly productive, which made it popular among farmers of that time. Currently, the share of soft varieties is more than 90%.
Solid
The region of origin of this culture has not been established to this day. Scientists consider its homeland to be the Mediterranean, since the maximum number of plant species and varieties was found there. This cereal began to be used in agriculture around the 4th-3rd millennium BC. Today, durum varieties occupy approximately 5% of all crops.
Spring and winter
These crop types can be of hard or soft varieties. Ancestors who lived in regions with a lot of snow and not very harsh winters identified the benefits of planting the plant in the autumn. The advantage of this method is the possibility of using moisture, which is obtained as a result of melting snow, for crop growth.As a result, it is possible to obtain an earlier ripening period when compared with planting in the spring.
For many centuries, breeding methods have made it possible to develop winter varieties and select the most frost-resistant ones. This is how the winter crop appeared. The first information about it in Russia dates back to the nineteenth century. The crop began to be cultivated in the Caucasus. At the same time, spring varieties are planted in the northeastern regions of Russia.
Wheat in Rus'
Residents of Russia were primarily engaged in agriculture. At the same time, in the southern regions it was wheat that was cultivated.
When did they start growing
The plant appeared in Rus' in the fifth century BC. This is one of the first cereal crops grown by the Slavs. It came from the Goths, who lived in the southern part of Eastern Europe. The origin of wheat is described in the earliest written sources.
What varieties did you grow?
The Slavs planted a plant that bears little resemblance to modern wheat. They sowed spelled - an ancient type of plant. This is a semi-wild cereal that is considered a relative of modern durum wheat. The spelled grains were covered with several layers of film. They were crushed and ground, and then boiled.
Distribution of the plant to other regions
During the Neolithic Revolution, culture quickly spread across the earth. Already in the 9th millennium BC, cereals left the Fertile Crescent. It was then that the plant began to be planted in the Aegean Sea region.
Some scientists believe that the domestication of the plant occurred in different regions at the same time. But the facts indicate otherwise. According to information obtained during archaeological excavations, the early cultivation of cereals was carried out only in the Middle East.
By the advent of our era, the plant became widespread in Asia and Africa. During the Roman Empire, the crop began to be planted in different parts of Europe.
The plant came to South and then North America in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. It was brought to the region by European colonists. It was not until the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries that wheat reached Canada and Australia. Thus, the cereal spread throughout the planet.
Wheat ancestor
The origin of the culture can be traced back to a wild grass that appeared 75 thousand years ago and belonged to the Triticeae family. This plant is the ancestor of modern wheat.
The earliest harvested wheat was wild emmer, which grew in the eastern Mediterranean. Her age was 12 thousand years.
The seeds of the culture were liked by primitive people. After which they began to use them. According to archaeological data, our ancestors grew wheat already in the 10th millennium BC. The ancient cereal had brittle ears and small grains. They fell off right after ripening, and therefore it was not possible to collect them. As a result, people had to eat unripe grains.
For thousands of years, farmers cultivated and selected seeds from wild plants, eventually leading to the domestication of cereals. At the same time, the cultivation of the plant proceeded extremely slowly.According to scientists, about 6.5 thousand years ago the culture was domesticated.
