Dictionary:
wheat (hwēt, wēt) 
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[Middle English whete, from Old English hwǣte.]
| 5min Related Video: wheat |
| Britannica Concise Encyclopedia: wheat |
For more information on wheat, visit Britannica.com.
| Sci-Tech Encyclopedia: Wheat |
A food grain crop. Wheat is the most widely grown food crop in the world, and is increasing in production. It ranks first in world crop production and is the national food staple of 43 countries. At least one-third of the world's population depends on wheat as its main staple. The principal food use of wheat is as bread, either leavened or unleavened. The United States is second to Russia in total production, but the average yield per acre in the United States is about twice that of Russia. Other major wheat-producing countries in the world are Canada, China, India, France, Argentina, and Australia.
Wheat is best adapted to a cool dry climate, but is grown in a wide range of soils and climates. Much of the world's wheat is seeded in the fall season and, after being dormant or growing very slowly during winter, it makes rapid growth in the spring and develops grain for harvest in early summer.
Wheat for milling is classified according to hardness, color, and best use. In the United States, there are seven official market classes of which the following five are the most important: (1) hard red winter, for bread; (2) hard red spring, for bread and rolls; (3) soft red winter, for cake and pastries; (4) white, for bread, breakfast foods, and pastries; and (5) durum, for macaroni products.
The wheat inflorescence is a spike bearing sessile spikelets arranged alternately on a zigzag rachis. Two, three, or more florets may develop in each spikelet and bear grains. The grain may be white, red (brown), or purple, and it may be hard or soft in texture. Size of the grain or caryopsis may be large, as in durum, or very small, as in shot wheat (Triticum sphaerococcum). Wheats vary in plant height and in the ability to produce tillers. The stems are usually hollow. The wheat grain is composed of the endosperm and embryo enclosed by bran layers. The endosperm portion is principally starch and is therefore used as energy food. Wheat is also an important protein source, especially for those people who use wheat as their main staple. See also Seed.
Botanically, wheat is a member of the grass family to which rice, barley, corn, and several other cereal grain crops also belong. The Triticum genus includes a wide range of wheat forms. Taxonomic studies place the goat grasses (Aegilops) and wheat (Triticum) in one genus, Triticum. Wheat has been crossed with rye (Secale) and with Agropyron (a grass). New forms, called Triticale, have been derived from crossing rye and wheat followed by doubling the chromosomes in the hybrid. See also Triticale.
Most countries in which wheat is grown have wheat breeding programs in which the objective is to develop more productive and more stable varieties (cultivars). Many methods are combined in these programs, but in nearly all of them specially selected parent types are crossbred followed by pure-line selection among the progeny to develop new combinations of merit. Varieties and genetic types from all over the world become candidate parents to provide the desired recombinations of good quality, winter and drought hardiness, straw strength, yield, and disease resistance. Wheats must be bred for specific milling processes and to provide quality end-use products. Many new varieties have complex pedigrees. See also Breeding (plant); Grain crops.
Milling of wheat has evolved from rudimentary crushing or cracking to sophisticated separation and refining. The main purpose of milling is isolation of the starch-protein matrix, that is, separation of the endosperm from the high-fiber bran and high-lipid germ. Under optimal conditions, milling yields a high-quality, uniformly colored flour with a relatively stable shelf-life. The flours of hard wheats (11 to 13% protein) develop strong gluten complexes during mixing and are therefore suitable for making bread. Whole soft wheats (9 to 11% protein) yield flours that are used primarily for cakes, cookies, and pastries. Durum wheat is used to produce a relatively coarse flour, semolina, used for manufacture of pasta products. See also Food manufacturing.
| Food and Nutrition: wheat |
The most important of the cereals and one of the most widely grown crops. Many thousand varieties are known but there are three main types: Triticum vulgare, used mainly for bread; Triticum durum (durum wheat; see also kamut), largely used for pasta; and Triticum compactum (club wheat), too soft for ordinary bread. The berry is composed of the outer, branny husk, 13% of the grain; the germ or embryo (rich in nutrients), 2%; and the central endosperm (mainly starch), 85%. See also flour,
| Food Lover's Companion: wheat |
Thought to have been growing since Paleolithic times and cultivated for at least 6,000 years, wheat is the world's largest cereal-grass crop. Its status as a staple is second only to rice. One reason for its popularity is that-unlike other cereals-wheat contains a relatively high amount of gluten, the protein that provides the elasticity necessary for excellent breadmaking. Though there are over 30,000 varieties of wheat, the three major types are hard wheat, soft wheat and durum wheat. Hard wheat is high in protein (10 to 14 percent) and yields a flour rich in gluten, making it particularly suitable for yeast breads. The low-protein (6 to 10 percent) soft wheat yields a flour lower in gluten and therefore better suited for tender baked goods such as biscuits and cakes. Durum wheat, although high in gluten, is not good for baking. Instead, it's most often ground into semolina, the basis for excellent pasta. In the United States, wheat is also classified according to the time of year it is sown-namely, spring wheat and winter wheat (which is actually sown in the fall). The unprocessed wheat kernel, commonly known as a wheat berry, is made up of three major portions-bran, germ and endosperm. Wheat bran, the rough outer covering, has very little nutritional value but plenty of fiber. During milling, the bran is removed from the kernel. It's sold separately and used to add flavor and fiber to baked goods. Wheat germ, essentially the embryo of the berry, is a concentrated source of vitamins, minerals and protein. It has a nutty flavor and is very oily, which causes it to turn rancid quickly. Wheat germ is sold in both toasted and natural forms and is used to add nutrition to a variety of foods. Wheat germ oil, an extraction of the germ, is strongly flavored and expensive. The wheat endosperm, which makes up the majority of the kernel, is full of starch, protein, niacin and iron. It's the primary source of many wheat flours. In addition to flour, wheat is available in several other forms including wheat berries, cracked wheat and bulghur wheat. Wheat berries are whole, unprocessed kernels, whereas cracked wheat is the whole berry broken into coarse, medium and fine fragments. Both are sold in natural food stores and may be cooked as cereal, or in pilafs, breads or other dishes. See also kamut.
| Archaeology Dictionary: wheat |
Domesticated cereal of the genus Triticum widely used as a crop by early farming communities in the Old World. Two wild forms of wheat are represented in the Near East: wild einkorn (Triticum boeoticum) and wild emmer (Triticum dicoccoides). Goat grass (Aegilops) is also present in the region and it is the hybridization of this with Triticum that accounts for most of the domesticated wheats, especially Triticum monococcum (einkorn), Triticum dicoccum (emmer), Triticum aestivum (bread wheat), Triticum compactum (club wheat), Triticum spelta (spelt wheat), and Triticum durum (macaroni wheat). Emmer, both wild and domesticated, appears on early Neolithic sites in the Near East from about 7000 bc.
| US History Encyclopedia: Wheat |
Throughout American history wheat has been the principal bread cereal. It was introduced by the first English colonists and early became the major cash crop of farmers on the westward-moving frontier. In colonial times its culture became concentrated in the middle colonies, which became known as the bread colonies. In the mid-eighteenth century, wheat culture spread to the Tidewater region of Maryland and Virginia, where George Washington became a prominent grower.
As the frontier crossed the Appalachian Mountains, so did wheat raising. The census of 1840 revealed Ohio as the premier wheat-producing state, but twenty years later Illinois took the lead; it retained its leading position for three decades, until Minnesota overtook it in 1889. Leadership moved with the farming frontier onto the Great Plains in the first years of the twentieth century. Census takers in 1909 found North Dakota to be the nation's top producer, followed by Kansas. Between 1919 and 1975 the order was reversed, except in 1934 and 1954, when Oklahoma and then Montana moved into second place. In the meantime, the soils of the Columbia River Valley became productive, with the state of Washington ranking fourth in wheat production in 1959.
The majority of the farmers east of the Mississippi River preferred soft winter wheat varieties, such as the Mediterranean (introduced in 1819), but those who settled the Great Plains found those varieties ill-adapted to the region's climates. Hard red spring wheats, such as Red Fife and Bluestem, proved more suited to the northern plains, while Turkey, a hard red winter wheat introduced into central Kansas by German Mennonites who had immigrated from Russia, became popular on the southern plains. The introduction of these hard wheats prompted a major change in the technology of grinding of wheat into flour: a shift from millstones to rollers.
Wheat growers soon developed more varieties better adapted to different regions. Early maturing Marquis was introduced from Canada in 1912, and by 1929 it made up 87 percent of the hard spring wheat acreage in the United States. It proved susceptible to black stem rust, however, and after 1934 it lost favor to Thatcher and, in the late 1960s, to Chris and Fortuna varieties. On the southern plains, Tenmarq, released by the Kansas Agricultural Experiment Station in 1932, superseded Turkey and was in turn replaced first by Pawnee and later by Triumph and Scout. In the 1960s the wheat growers of the Columbia Valley began to favor a new short-stemmed soft white winter wheat, known as Gaines, which doubled yields in that area within a four-year period.
Whatever the variety, in the colonial and early national period farmers sowed wheat by broadcasting (scattering seed by hand over a wide area), reaped mature wheat using sickles, and threshed the harvested grain with flails. In rapid succession in the nineteenth century, sowing with drills replaced broadcasting, cradles took the place of sickles, and reapers and binders in turn replaced cradles. Steam-powered threshing machines superseded flails. In the 1930s the small combine joined reaping and threshing into a single operation. Such technological advances greatly increased the nation's wheat production while cutting the labor requirements per bushel.
The handling and marketing of wheat went through parallel changes. Initially, laborers sacked, shipped, and unloaded the harvest into storage warehouses by hand, but after the Civil War railroads began to construct large grain elevators at country railroad stations and even larger elevators in terminal markets. Grain exchanges there sold the wheat to flour millers and exporters, and a futures market developed for speculators. However, farmers soon accused elevator operators of undergrading, shortweighting, and excessive dockage and began to seek active control over marketing through the organization of cooperatives.
Since colonial times, American wheat growers have produced a surplus for export. Exports of wheat and flour varied from 868,500 bushels in 1814 to 223.8 million bushels in 1898, providing foreign exchange that helped to finance the nation's industrialization. However, expansion of acreage during World War I and contraction of overseas demand after the armistice created an accumulation of surpluses that could not be marketed. The resulting low prices prompted growers to seek government price supports, first through the Mcnary-Haugen Bill, which failed to become law, and later through the Agricultural Adjustment Act of 1933 and its many revisions. Increasing production, which reached one billion bushels in 1944, permitted an expansion of wheat and flour exports as part of the nation's foreign assistance programs. In fiscal year 1966 these exports amounted to 858.7 million bushels, of which some 571 million were disposed of as food aid. A disastrous drought in the Soviet Union in 1972 led to the sale of 388.5 million bushels to that country in one year and the conclusion in 1975 of an agreement to supply the Soviets with breadstuffs over a five-year period.
Bibliography
Brumfield, Kirby. This Was Wheat Farming: A Pictorial History of the Farms and Farmers of the Northwest Who Grow the Nation's Bread. Seattle, Wash.: Superior Publishing, 1968.
Hadwiger, Don F. Federal Wheat Commodity Programs. Ames: Iowa State University Press, 1970.
Malin, James C. Winter Wheat in the Golden Belt of Kansas. Lawrence: University of Kansas Press, 1944.
Quisenberry, K. S., and L. P. Reitz. "Turkey Wheat: The Cornerstone of an Empire." Agricultural History 48 (1974): 98– 110.
| Columbia Encyclopedia: wheat |
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 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, bunt (see smut), and the Hessian fly and chinch bug. 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, 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). Its cultivation began in the Neolithic period. 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 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, 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).
| Food & Culture Encyclopedia: Wheat |
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This entry includes two subentries:
The Natural History of Wheat
Wheat As a Food
| Veterinary Dictionary: wheat |
A plant used principally for its grain as human food and livestock feed. Wheat by-products of bran pollard, middlings, shorts are a major source of protein supplements for ruminants. Used also to a limited extent as a fodder by grazing the green crop or as green chop. Called also Triticum vulgare.
| Nutritional Values: The Nutritional Value for: wheat, thin crackers |
| Quantity | Energy (calories) |
Carbohydrates (grams) |
Protein (grams) |
Cholesterol (milligrams) |
Weight (grams) |
Fat (grams) |
Saturated Fat (grams) |
| 4 crackers | 35 | 5 | 1 | 0 | 8 | 1 | 0.5 |
| Devil's Dictionary: wheat |
n.
A cereal from which a tolerably good whisky can with some difficulty be made, and which is used also for bread. The French are said to eat more bread per capita of population than any other people, which is natural, for only they know how to make the stuff palatable.
| Word Tutor: wheat |
There would be no advantage to be gained by sowing a field of wheat if the harvest did not return more than was sown.
— Napoleon Hill.
| Dream Symbol: Wheat |
A symbol of prosperity and nourishment, wheat can also suggest that the dreamer can "separate the wheat from the chaff."
| Wikipedia: Wheat |
| Wheat | |
|---|---|
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| Scientific classification | |
| Kingdom: | Plantae |
| (unranked): | Angiosperms |
| (unranked): | Monocots |
| (unranked): | Commelinids |
| Order: | Poales |
| Family: | Poaceae |
| Subfamily: | Pooideae |
| Tribe: | Triticeae |
| Genus: | Triticum L. |
| Species | |
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T. aestivum |
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Wheat (Triticum spp.)[1] is a grass, originally from the Fertile Crescent region of the Near East, but now cultivated worldwide. In 2007 world production of wheat was 607 million tons, making it the third most-produced cereal after maize (784 million tons) and rice (651 million tons).[2] Wheat grain is a staple food used to make flour for leavened, flat and steamed breads, biscuits, cookies, cakes, breakfast cereal, pasta, noodles, couscous [3] and for fermentation to make beer,[4] alcohol, vodka,[5] or biofuel.[6] Wheat is planted to a limited extent as a forage crop for livestock, and the straw can be used as fodder for livestock or as a construction material for roofing thatch.[7][8]
Wheat is a globally important source of dietary carbohydrate (starch) and protein, but cannot be eaten by people who have an adverse immune reaction, called Celiac disease, to gluten, one of wheat's component proteins. Statistics for people in the United States) indicate that between 0.5 and 1.0 percent of the population has celiac disease.[9][10][11]
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Wheat has been cultivated domestically at least since 9,000 B.C. and probably earlier. Domesticated Einkorn wheat at Nevali Cori 40 miles northwest of Gobekli Tepe in Turkey has been dated to 9,000 B.C.[12]
However evidence for the exploitation of wild barley has been dated to 23,000 B.C. and some say this is also true of pre-domesticated wheat.[13]
Wheat genetics is more complicated than that of most other domesticated species. Some wheat species are diploid, with two sets of chromosomes, but many are stable polyploids, with four sets of chromosomes (tetraploid) or six (hexaploid).[14]
In traditional agricultural systems wheat populations often consist of landraces, informal farmer-maintained populations that often maintain high levels of morphological diversity. Although landraces of wheat are no longer grown in Europe and North America, they continue to be important elsewhere. The origins of formal wheat breeding lie in the nineteenth century, when single line varieties were created through selection of seed from a single plant noted to have desired properties. Modern wheat breeding developed in the first years of the twentieth century and was closely linked to the development of Mendelian genetics. The standard method of breeding inbred wheat cultivars is by crossing two lines using hand emasculation, then selfing or inbreeding the progeny. Selections are identified (shown to have the genes responsible for the varietal differences) ten or more generations before release as a variety or cultivar.[15]
F1 hybrid wheat cultivars should not be confused with wheat cultivars deriving from standard plant breeding. Heterosis or hybrid vigor (as in the familiar F1 hybrids of maize) occurs in common (hexaploid) wheat, but it is difficult to produce seed of hybrid cultivars on a commercial scale as is done with maize because wheat flowers are complete and normally self-pollinate.[15] Commercial hybrid wheat seed has been produced using chemical hybridizing agents, plant growth regulators that selectively interfere with pollen development, or naturally occurring cytoplasmic male sterility systems. Hybrid wheat has been a limited commercial success in Europe (particularly France), the USA and South Africa.[16]
The major breeding objectives include high grain yield, good quality, disease and insect resistance and tolerance to abiotic stresses include mineral, moisture and heat tolerance. The major diseases in temperate environments include the following, arranged in a rough order of their significance from cooler to warmer climates: eyespot, Stagonospora nodorum blotch (also known as glume blotch), yellow or stripe rust, powdery mildew, Septoria tritici blotch (sometimes known as leaf blotch), brown or leaf rust, Fusarium head blight, tan spot and stem rust. In tropical areas, spot blotch (also known as Helminthosporium leaf blight) is also important.
The four wild species of wheat, along with the domesticated varieties einkorn,[17] emmer[18] and spelt,[19] have hulls. This more primitive morphology (in evolutionary terms) consists of toughened glumes that tightly enclose the grains, and (in domesticated wheats) a semi-brittle rachis that breaks easily on threshing. The result is that when threshed, the wheat ear breaks up into spikelets. To obtain the grain, further processing, such as milling or pounding, is needed to remove the hulls or husks. In contrast, in free-threshing (or naked) forms such as durum wheat and common wheat, the glumes are fragile and the rachis tough. On threshing, the chaff breaks up, releasing the grains. Hulled wheats are often stored as spikelets because the toughened glumes give good protection against pests of stored grain.[17]
There are many botanical classification systems used for wheat species, discussed in a separate article on Wheat taxonomy. The name of a wheat species from one information source may not be the name of a wheat species in another. Within a species, wheat cultivars are further classified by wheat breeders and farmers in terms of growing season, such as winter wheat vs. spring wheat,[8] by gluten content, such as hard wheat (high protein content) vs. soft wheat (high starch content), or by grain color (red, white or amber).
Classes used in the United States are
Red wheats may need bleaching, therefore white wheats usually command higher prices than red wheats on the commodities market.
| Nutritional value per 100 g (3.5 oz) | |
|---|---|
| Energy | 1,506 kJ (360 kcal) |
| Carbohydrates | 51.8 g |
| Dietary fiber | 13.2 g |
| Fat | 9.72 g |
| Protein | 23.15 g |
| Thiamine (Vit. B1) | 1.882 mg (145%) |
| Riboflavin (Vit. B2) | 0.499 mg (33%) |
| Niacin (Vit. B3) | 6.813 mg (45%) |
| Pantothenic acid (B5) | 0.05 mg (1%) |
| Vitamin B6 | 1.3 mg (100%) |
| Folate (Vit. B9) | 281 μg (70%) |
| Calcium | 39 mg (4%) |
| Iron | 6.26 mg (50%) |
| Magnesium | 239 mg (65% |
| Phosphorus | 842 mg (120%) |
| Potassium | 892 mg (19%) |
| Zinc | 12.29 mg (123%) |
| Manganese 13.301 mg | |
| Percentages are relative to US recommendations for adults. Source: USDA Nutrient database |
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Raw wheat can be powdered into flour; germinated and dried creating malt; crushed or cut into cracked wheat; parboiled (or steamed), dried, crushed and de-branned into bulgur; or processed into semolina, pasta, or roux. Wheat is a major ingredient in such foods as bread, porridge, crackers, biscuits, Muesli, pancakes, pies, pastries, cakes, cookies, muffins, rolls, doughnuts, gravy, boza (a fermented beverage), and breakfast cereals (e.g. Wheatena, Cream of Wheat, Shredded Wheat, and Wheaties).
100 grams of hard red winter wheat[clarification needed] contain about 12.6 grams of protein, 1.5 grams of total fat, 71 grams of carbohydrate (by difference), 12.2 grams of dietary fiber, and 3.2 mg of iron (17% of the daily requirement); the same weight of hard red spring wheat contains about 15.4 grams of protein, 1.9 grams of total fat, 68 grams of carbohydrate (by difference), 12.2 grams of dietary fiber, and 3.6 mg of iron (20% of the daily requirement).[21]
Gluten, a protein found in wheat (and other Triticeae), cannot be tolerated by people with celiac disease (an autoimmune disorder in ~1% of Indo-European populations).[22]
Much of the carbohydrate fraction of wheat is starch. Wheat starch is an important commercial product of wheat, but second in economic value to wheat gluten.[23] The principal parts of wheat flour are gluten and starch. These can be separated in a kind of home experiment, by mixing flour and water to form a small ball of dough, and kneading it gently while rinsing it in a bowl of water. The starch falls out of the dough and sinks to the bottom of the bowl, leaving behind a ball of gluten.
Roughly 1% of the population[24] has coeliac (also written as celiac) disease—a condition that is caused by an adverse immune system reaction to gliadin, a gluten protein found in wheat (and similar proteins of the tribe Triticeae which includes other species such as barley and rye). Upon exposure to gliadin, the enzyme tissue transglutaminase modifies the protein, and the immune system cross-reacts with the bowel tissue, causing an inflammatory reaction. That leads to flattening of the lining of the small intestine, which interferes with the absorption of nutrients. The only effective treatment is a lifelong gluten-free diet. While the disease is caused by a reaction to wheat proteins, it is not the same as wheat allergy.
Harvested wheat grain that enters trade is classified according to grain properties for the purposes of the commodities market. Wheat buyers use the classifications to help determine which wheat to purchase as each class has special uses. Wheat producers determine which classes of wheat are the most profitable to cultivate with this system.
Wheat is widely cultivated as a cash crop because it produces a good yield per unit area, grows well in a temperate climate even with a moderately short growing season, and yields a versatile, high-quality flour that is widely used in baking. Most breads are made with wheat flour, including many breads named for the other grains they contain like most rye and oat breads. The popularity of foods made from wheat flour creates a large demand for the grain, even in economies with significant food surpluses.
In 2007 there was a dramatic rise in the price of wheat due to freezes and flooding in the northern hemisphere and a drought in Australia. Wheat futures in September, 2007 for December and March delivery had risen above $9.00 a bushel, prices never seen before.[25] There were complaints in Italy about the high price of pasta.[26] This followed a wider trend of escalating food prices around the globe, driven in part by climatic conditions such as drought in Australia, the diversion of arable land to other uses (such as producing government-subsidised bio-oil crops), and later by some food-producing nations placing bans or restrictions on exports in order to satisfy their own consumers.
Other drivers affecting wheat prices include the movement to bio fuels (in 2008, a third of corn crops in the US are expected to be devoted to ethanol production)[citation needed] and rising incomes in developing countries, which is causing a shift in eating patterns from predominantly rice to more meat based diets (a rise in meat production equals a rise in grain consumption - seven kilograms of grain is required to produce one kilogram of beef.[27]
In 2003, global per capita wheat consumption was 67 kg, with the highest per capita consumption (239 kg) found in Kyrgyzstan.[28]
Unlike rice, wheat production is more widespread globally though China's share is almost one-sixth of the world.
| Top Ten Wheat Producers — 2007 (million metric ton) | |
|---|---|
 China |
109 |
 India |
76 |
 United States |
56 |
 Russia |
49 |
 France |
33 |
 Pakistan |
23 |
 Germany |
21 |
 Canada |
20 |
 Turkey |
17 |
 Argentina |
16 |
| World Total | 725 |
| Source: UN Food & Agriculture Organisation (FAO)[29] | |
While winter wheat lies dormant during a winter freeze, wheat normally requires between 110 and 130 days between planting and harvest, depending upon climate, seed type, and soil conditions. Crop management decisions require the knowledge of stage of development of the crop. In particular, spring fertilizer applications, herbicides, fungicides, growth regulators are typically applied at specific stages of plant development.
For example, current recommendations often indicate the second application of nitrogen be done when the ear (not visible at this stage) is about 1 cm in size (Z31 on Zadoks scale). Knowledge of stages is also interesting to identify periods of higher risk, in terms of climate. For example, the meiosis stage is extremely susceptible to low temperatures (under 4 °C) or high temperatures (over 25 °C). Farmers also benefit from knowing when the flag leaf (last leaf) appears as this leaf represents about 75% of photosynthesis reactions during the grain-filling period and as such should be preserved from disease or insect attacks to ensure a good yield.
Several systems exist to identify crop stages, with the Feekes and Zadoks scales being the most widely used. Each scale is a standard system which describes successive stages reached by the crop during the agricultural season.
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Estimates of the amount of wheat production lost owing to plant diseases vary between 10-25% in Missouri.[30] A wide range of organisms infect wheat, of which the most important are viruses and fungi.
Wheat is used as a food plant by the larvae of some Lepidoptera (butterfly and moth) species including The Flame, Rustic Shoulder-knot, Setaceous Hebrew Character and Turnip Moth.
Wheat futures are traded on the Chicago Board of Trade, Kansas City Board of Trade, and Minneapolis Grain Exchange, and have delivery dates in March (H), May (K), July (N), September (U), and December (Z).[31]
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| Translations: Wheat |
idioms:
idioms:
idioms:
Ελληνική (Greek)
n. - (φυτολ.) σιτάρι, στάρι
idioms:
idioms:
Português (Portuguese)
n. - trigo (m) (Bot.)
idioms:
Русский (Russian)
пшеница, золотистый цвет
idioms:
idioms:
中文（简体）(Chinese (Simplified))
小麦, 淡黄色, 小麦色
idioms:
中文（繁體）(Chinese (Traditional))
n. - 小麥, 淡黃色, 小麥色
idioms:
idioms:
العربيه (Arabic)
(الاسم) قمح, حنطه
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 | Dictionary. The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition Copyright © 2007, 2000 by Houghton Mifflin Company. Updated in 2009. Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved. Read more |
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| Britannica Concise Encyclopedia. Britannica Concise Encyclopedia. © 2006 Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc. All rights reserved. Read more |
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| Sci-Tech Encyclopedia. McGraw-Hill Encyclopedia of Science and Technology. Copyright © 2005 by The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved. Read more |
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| Food Lover's Companion. Food Lover's Companion. Copyright © 2001 by Barron's Educational Series, Inc. All rights reserved. Read more |
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| Archaeology Dictionary. The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Archaeology. Copyright © 2002, 2003 by Oxford University Press. All rights reserved. Read more |
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| US History Encyclopedia. © 2006 through a partnership of Answers Corporation. All rights reserved. Read more |
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| Columbia Encyclopedia. The Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia, Sixth Edition Copyright © 2003, Columbia University Press. Licensed from Columbia University Press. All rights reserved. www.cc.columbia.edu/cu/cup/. Read more |
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| Food & Culture Encyclopedia. Encyclopedia of Food and Culture. Copyright © 2003 by The Gale Group, Inc. All rights reserved. Read more |
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| Veterinary Dictionary. Saunders Comprehensive Veterinary Dictionary 3rd Edition. Copyright © 2007 by D.C. Blood, V.P. Studdert and C.C. Gay, Elsevier. All rights reserved. Read more |
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| Nutritional Values. © 1999-2009 by Answers Corporation. All rights reserved. Read more |
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| Devil's Dictionary. Devil's Dictionary by Ambrose Bierce, 1911 Read more |
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| Word Tutor. Copyright © 2004-present by eSpindle Learning, a 501(c) nonprofit organization. All rights reserved. eSpindle provides personalized spelling and vocabulary tutoring online; free trial. Read more |
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| Dream Symbol. The Dreams Encyclopedia. 1995 ©Visible Ink Press. All rights reserved. Read more |
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| Wikipedia. This article is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article "Wheat". Read more |
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| Translations. Copyright © 2007, WizCom Technologies Ltd. All rights reserved. Read more |
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