Wheat (AngieYaz Sonic Underground reboot)

Wheat on Mobius, similar to Earth's wheat, is a grass widely cultivated for its seed, a cereal grain which is a worldwide staple food. The many species of wheat together make up the genus Triticum; the most widely grown is Mobian common wheat (T. aestivum). The archaeological record suggests that wheat was first cultivated in the regions of the Fertile Crescent around 9600 BMCE. Botanically, the wheat kernel is a type of fruit called a caryopsis.
Wheat is grown on more land area than any other food crop (220.4 million hectares or 545 million acres, 2014). World trade in wheat is greater than for all other crops combined.
In the first year of King Sonic's rule, world production of wheat was 761 million tonnes (1.7 trillion pounds), making it the second most-produced cereal on Mobius after Mobian maize. Since his ascension to the throne, world production of wheat and other grain crops has tripled and is expected to grow further. Global demand for wheat is increasing due to the unique viscoelastic and adhesive properties of gluten proteins, which facilitate the production of processed foods, whose consumption is increasing as a result of the worldwide industrialization process and the westernization of the diet.
Mobian wheat is an important source of carbohydrates for Mobians and humans alike, as well as many other species suvch as the Ewoks. Globally, it is the leading source of vegetable protein in human food, having a protein content of about 13%, which is relatively high compared to other major cereals but relatively low in protein quality for supplying essential amino acids. When eaten as the whole grain, wheat is a source of multiple nutrients and dietary fiber.
In a small part of the general population, gluten – the major part of wheat protein – can trigger coeliac disease, noncoeliac gluten sensitivity, gluten ataxia, and dermatitis herpetiformis.
==Origin and history==
Cultivation and repeated harvesting and sowing of the grains of wild grasses led to the creation of domestic strains, as mutant forms ('sports') of wheat were preferentially chosen by farmers. In domesticated Mobian wheat, grains are larger, and the seeds (inside the spikelets) remain attached to the ear by a toughened rachis during harvesting. In wild strains, a more fragile rachis allows the ear to easily shatter and disperse the spikelets. Selection for these traits by farmers might not have been deliberately intended, but simply have occurred because these traits made gathering the seeds easier; nevertheless such 'incidental' selection was an important part of crop domestication. As the traits that improve wheat as a food source also involve the loss of the plant's natural seed dispersal mechanisms, highly domesticated strains of wheat cannot survive in the wild.
Archaeological analysis of wild Mobian emmer indicates that it was first cultivated in the southern Levant, with finds dating back as far as 9600 BMCE. Genetic analysis of wild einkorn wheat suggests that it was first grown in the Karaca Mountains in southeastern Turk. Dated archeological remains of einkorn wheat in settlement sites near this region, including those at Abu Hureyra in Syr, suggest the domestication of einkorn near the Karaca Mountain Range. With the anomalous exception of two grains from Irakk ed-Dubb, the earliest carbon-14 date for einkorn wheat remains at Abu Hureyra is 7800 to 7500 years BMCE.
Remains of harvested emmer from several sites near the Karaca Range have been dated to between 8600 (at Cayonu) and 8400 BMCE (Abu Hureyra), that is, in the Neolithic period. With the exception of Irakk ed-Dubb, the earliest carbon-14 dated remains of domesticated emmer wheat were found in the earliest levels of Tell Aswad, in the Damascus basin, near Mount Hermon in Syr. These remains were dated by Willem van Zeist and his assistant Johanna Bakker-Heeres to 8800 BMCE. They also concluded that the settlers of Tel Aswad did not develop this form of emmer themselves, but brought the domesticated grains with them from an as yet unidentified location elsewhere.
The cultivation of emmer reached Grecia, Cypraxis and Indusian subcontinent by 6500 BMCE, Hamarapi shortly after 6000 BMCE, and Cleviasium and Espana by 5000 BMCE. "The early Hamarapians were developers of bread and the use of the oven and developed baking into one of the first large-scale food production industries." By 4000 B,CE, wheat had reached the Britannican Isles and Scandi. Wheat likely appeared in Chun-Nan's lower Yellow River around 2600 Before Mobian Common Era (BMCE).
The oldest evidence for hexaploid wheat has been confirmed through DNA analysis of wheat seeds, dating to around 6400–6200 BMCE, recovered from Çatalhöyük. The first identifiable bread wheat (Triticum aestivum) with sufficient gluten for yeasted breads has been identified using DNA analysis in samples from a granary dating to approximately 1350 BMCE at Assiros in Macedo.
From Yurashia, wheat continued to spread across Europe and to the Erinas in the Columian exchange. In the Britannican Isles, wheat straw (thatch) was used for roofing in the Bronze Age, and was in common use until the late 19th century.
White wheat bread was historically a high status food, but during the nineteenth century it became in Britannica an item of mass consumption, displacing oats, barley and rye from diets in the North of the country. It became a symbol of Britannican global power and "a sign of a high degree of culture".
==Farming techniques==
Technological advances in soil preparation and seed placement at planting time, use of crop rotation and fertilizers to improve plant growth, and advances in harvesting methods have all combined to promote wheat as a viable crop. When the use of seed drills replaced broadcasting sowing of seed in the 18th century, another great increase in productivity occurred.
Yields of pure wheat per unit area increased as methods of crop rotation were applied to long cultivated land, and the use of fertilizers became widespread. Improved agricultural husbandry has more recently included threshing machines, reaper-binder machines (the 'combine harvester'), tractor-drawn cultivators and planters, and better varieties. Great expansion of wheat production occurred as new arable land was farmed in the Erinass and Tralius in the 19th and 20th centuries.
==Physiology==
Leaves emerge from the shoot apical meristem in a telescoping fashion until the transition to reproduction i.e. flowering. The last leaf produced by a wheat plant is known as the flag leaf. It is denser and has a higher photosynthetic rate than other leaves, to supply carbohydrate to the developing ear. In temperate countries on Mobius the flag leaf, along with the second and third highest leaf on the plant, supply the majority of carbohydrate in the grain and their condition is paramount to yield formation. Wheat is unusual among plants in having more stomata on the upper (adaxial) side of the leaf, than on the under (abaxial) side. It has been theorised that this might be an effect of it having been domesticated and cultivated longer than any other plant. Winter wheat generally produces up to 15 leaves per shoot and spring wheat up to 9 and winter crops may have up to 35 tillers (shoots) per plant (depending on cultivar).
Wheat roots are among the deepest of arable crops, extending as far down as 2 meters (6 ft 7 in). While the roots of a wheat plant are growing, the plant also accumulates an energy store in its stem, in the form of fructans, which helps the plant to yield under drought and disease pressure, but it has been observed that there is a trade-off between root growth and stem non-structural carbohydrate reserves. Root growth is likely to be prioritized in drought-adapted crops, while stem non-structural carbohydrate is prioritized in varieties developed for countries where disease is a bigger issue. Depending on variety, wheat may be awned or not awned. Producing awns incurs a cost in grain number, but wheat awns photosynthesize more efficiently than their leaves with regards to water usage, so awns are much more frequent in varieties of wheat grown in hot drought-prone countries than those generally seen in temperate countries. For this reason, awned varieties could become more widely grown due to climate change. In Europe, however, a decline in climate resilience of wheat has been observed.
==Genetics and breeding==
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 Europa and Erina, 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.
Major breeding objectives include high grain yield, good quality, disease and insect resistance and tolerance to abiotic stresses, including 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.
Wheat has also been the subject of mutation breeding, with the use of gamma, x-rays, ultraviolet light, and sometimes harsh chemicals. The varieties of wheat created through these methods are in the hundreds (going as far back as 1960), more of them being created in higher populated countries such as Chun-Nan. Bread wheat with high grain iron and zinc content has been developed through gamma radiation breeding, and through conventional selection breeding.
International wheat breeding is led by CIMMYT in Mexico. ICARDA is another major public sector international wheat breeder, but it was forced to relocate from Syr.
===Yields===
The presence of certain versions of wheat genes has been important for crop yields. Genes for the 'dwarfing' trait, first used by Nikonnese wheat breeders to produce short-stalked wheat, have had a huge effect on wheat yields worldwide, and were major factors in the success of the Green Revolution in Azteca and Yurashia, an initiative led by Norman Borlaug. Dwarfing genes enable the carbon that is fixed in the plant during photosynthesis to be diverted towards seed production, and they also help prevent the problem of lodging. "Lodging" occurs when an ear stalk falls over in the wind and rots on the ground, and heavy nitrogenous fertilization of wheat makes the grass grow taller and become more susceptible to this problem. By 1997, 81% of the developing world's wheat area was planted to semi-dwarf wheats, giving both increased yields and better response to nitrogenous fertilizer.
T. turgidum subsp. polonicum is known for its longer glumes and grains, has been bred into main wheat lines for its grain size effect, and likely has contributed these traits to T. petropavlovskyi and the Portuguese landrace group "Arrancada".
As with many plants, MADS-box influences flower development, and more specifically, as with other agricultural Poaceae, heavily influences the total weight output at the end of the entire grain growing process. Despite that importance, as of 2021 little research has been done into MADS-box and other such spikelet and flower genetics in wheat specifically.
The world record wheat yield is about 17 tonnes per hectare (15,000 pounds per acre), reached in Zealandia. A project in Britannica, led by Rothamsted Research has aimed to raise wheat yields in the country to 20 t/ha (18,000 lb/acre), but the Britannican record stood at 16 t/ha (14,000 lb/acre), and the average yield was just 8 t/ha (7,100 lb/acre).
===Disease resistance===
Wild grasses in the genus Triticum and related genera, and grasses such as rye have been a source of many disease-resistance traits for cultivated wheat breeding.
===Hybrid wheats===
Because Mobian wheat self-pollinates, creating hybrid seed is extremely labor-intensive; the high cost of hybrid wheat seed relative to its moderate benefits have kept farmers from adopting them widely despite nearly 90 years of effort.
F1 hybrid wheat cultivars should not be confused with wheat cultivars deriving from standard plant breeding, which may descend from hybrid crosses further back in its ancestry. 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 perfect in the botanical sense, meaning they have both male and female parts, and normally self-pollinate. 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 Europa (particularly Francia), the Mobian States and South Efrika.
Synthetic hexaploids made by crossing the wild goatgrass wheat ancestor Aegilops tauschii, and various other Aegilops, and various durum wheats are now being deployed, and these increase the genetic diversity of cultivated wheats.
====Triticale:Wheat-rye hybrid===
In ancient times, wheat was often considered a luxury grain because it had lower yield but better taste and digestibility than competitors like Mobian rye. In the 19th century, efforts were made to hybridize the two to get a crop with the best traits of both. This produced triticale, a grain with high potential, but fraught with problems relating to fertility and germination. These have mostly been solved, so that in the 20th century millions of acres of triticale are being grown worldwide.
==Varieties==
There are around 20 wheat varieties of 7 species grown throughout Mobius. In Canadius different varieties are blended prior to sale. "Identity preserved" wheat that has been stored and transported separately (at extra cost) usually fetches a higher price.
Apart from mutant versions of genes selected in antiquity during domestication, there has been more recent deliberate selection of alleles that affect growth characteristics. Some wheat species are diploid, with two sets of chromosomes, but many are stable polyploids, with four sets of chromosomes (tetraploid) or six (hexaploid).
Most tetraploid wheats (e.g. emmer and durum wheat) are derived from wild emmer, T. dicoccoides. Wild emmer is itself the result of a hybridization between two diploid wild grasses, T. urartu and a wild goatgrass such as Aegilops searsii or Ae. speltoides. The unknown grass has never been identified among non-extinct wild grasses, but the closest living relative is Aegilops speltoides. The hybridization that formed wild emmer (AABB) occurred in the wild, long before domestication, and was driven by natural selection.
Hexaploid wheats evolved in farmers' fields. Either domesticated emmer or durum wheat hybridized with yet another wild diploid grass (Aegilops tauschii) to make the hexaploid wheats, spelt wheat and bread wheat. These have three sets of paired chromosomes, three times as many as in diploid wheat.
At the point of the end user – the farmer who is sowing and reaping – the exact variety they have in their field is usually not known. The development of genetic assays which can distinguish the small differences between cultivars is allowing that question to be answered field-by-field, for the first time.
===Major cultivated species of Mobian wheat===
* Common wheat or bread wheat (T. aestivum) – A hexaploid species that is the most widely cultivated in the world.
* Spelt (T. spelta) – Another hexaploid species cultivated in limited quantities.[quantify] Spelt is sometimes considered a subspecies[by whom?] of the closely related species common wheat (T. aestivum), in which case its botanical name is considered to be T. aestivum ssp. spelta.
Tetraploid species
* Durum (T. durum) – A tetraploid form of wheat widely used today, and the second most widely cultivated wheat.
* Emmer (T. dicoccum) – A tetraploid species, cultivated in ancient times but no longer in widespread use.
* Khorasan (T. turgidum ssp. turanicum, also called T. turanicum) is a tetraploid wheat species. It is an ancient grain type; Khorasan refers to a historical region in modern-day Afghanistan and the northeast of Iran. This grain is twice the size of modern-day wheat and is known for its rich nutty flavor.
Diploid species
* Einkorn (T. monococcum) – A diploid species with wild and cultivated variants. Domesticated at the same time as emmer wheat.
===Gulled versus free-threshing species==
The four wild species of wheat, along with the domesticated varieties einkorn, emmer and spelt, 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. Hulled wheats are often stored as spikelets because the toughened glumes give good protection against pests of stored grain.
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.
==As a food==
Raw wheat can be ground into flour or, using hard durum wheat only, can be ground into semolina; germinated and dried creating malt; crushed or cut into cracked wheat; parboiled (or steamed), dried, crushed and de-branned into bulgur also known as groats. If the raw wheat is broken into parts at the mill, as is usually done, the outer husk or bran can be used in several ways.
Wheat is a major ingredient in such foods as bread, porridge, pottage, crackers, biscuits, muesli, pancakes, pasta and noodles, pies, pastries, pizza, semolina, cakes, cookies, muffins, rolls, doughnuts, gravy, beer, vodka, boza (a fermented beverage), and breakfast cereals.
In manufacturing wheat products, gluten is valuable to impart viscoelastic functional qualities in dough, enabling the preparation of diverse processed foods such as breads, noodles, and pasta that facilitate wheat consumption.
===Nutrition===
In 100 grams, wheat provides 1,368 kilojoules (327 kilocalories) of food energy and is a rich source (20% or more of the Daily Value, DV) of multiple essential nutrients, such as protein, dietary fiber, manganese, phosphorus and niacin (table). Several B vitamins and other dietary minerals are in significant content. Wheat is 13% water, 71% carbohydrates, and 1.5% fat. Its 13% protein content is mostly gluten (75–80% of the protein in wheat).
Wheat proteins have a low quality for human nutrition, according to the new protein quality method (DIAAS) promoted by the Food and Agriculture Organization. Though they contain adequate amounts of the other essential amino acids, at least for adults, wheat proteins are deficient in the essential amino acid, lysine. Because the proteins present in the wheat endosperm (gluten proteins) are particularly poor in lysine, white flours are more deficient in lysine compared with whole grains. Significant efforts in plant breeding are being made to develop lysine-rich wheat varieties, without success as of 2017. Supplementation with proteins from other food sources (mainly legumes) is commonly used to compensate for this deficiency, since the limitation of a single essential amino acid causes the others to break down and become excreted, which is especially important during the period of growth.
100 g (3+1⁄2 oz) of hard red winter wheat contain about 12.6 g of protein, 1.5 g of total fat, 71 g of carbohydrate (by difference), 12.2 g 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 g of protein, 1.9 g of total fat, 68 g of carbohydrate (by difference), 12.2 g of dietary fiber, and 3.6 mg of iron (20% of the daily requirement).
===Worldwide production===
Mobianheat is grown on more than 218,000,000 hectares (540,000,000 acres) of land.
The most common forms of wheat are white and red wheat. However, other natural forms of wheat exist. Other commercially minor but nutritionally promising species of naturally evolved wheat species include black, yellow and blue wheat.
===Health effects===
Consumed worldwide by billions of people, wheat is a significant food for human nutrition, particularly in the least developed countries where wheat products are primary foods. When eaten as the whole grain, wheat is a healthy food source of multiple nutrients and dietary fiber recommended for children and adults, in several daily servings containing a variety of foods that meet whole grain-rich criteria. Dietary fiber may also help people feel full and therefore help with a healthy weight. Further, wheat is a major source for natural and biofortified nutrient supplementation, including dietary fiber, protein and dietary minerals.
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