Bread wheat, also called common wheat, is the grain behind most of the world's bread, cookies, and noodles, making up about 95% of all wheat grown. In the US, much of it grows across the Great Plains.
Appearance
- Growth form
- An annual grass grown as a grain crop.
- Fruit
- The grain is mostly starchy , which becomes flour, plus bran and germ.
Look-alikes
BarleyHordeum vulgare
Wheat has a single at each joint of the head, and many varieties have short or none. Barley spikelets grow in threes and carry long bristles (awns) up to about 6 in (16 cm), giving the head a shaggy look; ripe barley heads tend to droop.
Why they get mixed upBoth are grain grasses grown in similar fields with similar seed heads.
Where it lives
- Typical habitats
- Farm fields
- Field edges
- Range
- Arose about 8,000 years ago in the South Caucasus and southwest Caspian region. In the US, winter wheat is grown mainly from northern Texas to Montana across the Great Plains, and spring wheat mostly in the Northern Plains.
- Preferred conditions
- Winter wheat is planted where winters are mild enough for it to survive; in the harsher Northern Great Plains, farmers mostly grow spring wheat.
Growing it
- Care
- Winter wheat, nearly 70% of the US wheat crop, is sown in fall, goes dormant over winter, and is harvested in summer. Spring wheat is planted from mid-March through May and harvested in late summer or fall.
Name and classification
- About the name
- Bread wheat formed when a cultivated wheat crossed naturally with a wild goatgrass, Aegilops tauschii, giving it six sets of chromosomes. Spelt and compact club wheats are close relatives and are sometimes treated as subspecies of bread wheat.
Conservation
- IUCN Red List
- NENot EvaluatedNot yet assessed
Culture and stories
- Culture and stories
- US wheat is sold by class: hard red winter from the Great Plains goes into bread flour; hard red spring from North Dakota, Montana, Minnesota, and South Dakota is prized for high protein; soft red winter from the Mississippi River states and East makes cakes, cookies, and crackers; and white wheat from Washington, Oregon, Idaho, and Michigan goes into noodles, crackers, and cereals.
- Today's short-stemmed wheats trace to the Japanese variety Norin 10, whose dwarfing genes Norman Borlaug bred into high-yielding wheats in the 1960s.
- Wheat is a common food allergen, and the reaction isn't always to gluten—other wheat proteins can trigger it too.
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