Wheat. Peter R. Shewry

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Lovegrove, Dr. Cristina Sanchis‐Gritsch, Dr. Andy Neal, Margaret Glendining (all Rothamsted Research), Dr. Brittany Hazard (Quadram Institute Bioscience, Norwich), Prof. Filiz Koksel (University of Manitoba, Canada), Dr. Paola Tosi (University of Reading, UK), Dr. Katy Moore (University of Manchester, UK), Dr. Simon Berry (Limagrain UK Ltd.), Dr. Louise Wells (ATC, Maidenhead, UK), Professor Marie Sofie Møller (DTU, Lyngby, Denmark), and Dr. Ellen F. Mosleth (Nofima, Ås, Norway).

      Finally, would like to thank Sue Steele (Rothamsted Research) and Ruth Gooding for their help throughout the project.

       Nobody is qualified to become a statesman who is entirely ignorant of the problem of wheat.

      Socrates

      1.1.1 Co‐Evolution of Wheat Production and Human Societies

      The wheat story is one of growing mutual reliance between a remarkable mammal, us ( Homo sapiens sapiens), and a remarkable group of grain‐bearing grasses, the wheats (Triticum spp.). This relationship has affected our societal development and the way we spend our lives. At the same time, we have manipulated wheat plants to our own designs: the domesticated types of wheat grown by farmers fail to establish and flourish in the wild. The most widely grown wheat species, Triticum aestivum, appears never to have existed outside of cultivation.

      We are increasingly aware that the interdependency between wheat and humans has implications for our health and environment. Our understanding of this association informs how we plan to maintain food supplies, how we attempt to sustain the quality of our nutrition, and how we strive to protect the ecosystems on which we depend: for ourselves and future generations.

      It has not always been like this. For at least 95% of their time on earth, modern humans existed as sparse groups of mobile hunter‐gatherers. From around 12 000 years ago (before present, BP), however, there is scattered evidence of sedentism. It is not certain that this change from nomadic to sedentary behaviour resulted from the need to tend plants such as wheat, but from 10 500 to 8000 BP there is evidence of increased planting. Over the following millennia, the settlements became organised into states which were largely founded, funded, and organised around the production of grain from grasses such as wheat (Scott 2017). Increases in production have been associated with political and military strength (Perkins 1997) while interruptions in the supply of wheat and its products continue to contribute to famine, civil unrest, and conflicts (Bellemare 2015).

      Wheat is a cereal. The cereals are grass plants grown primarily for their seeds to be used as a foodstuff. We name them after the Roman god of food plants, Ceres. For early gatherers and then farmers, cereal grains provided a concentrated source of nutrients. Wheat, like other cereals, is multifunctional, providing carbohydrates (mostly starch), protein, fat, minerals, vitamins, and fibre. Growing wheat would have been comparatively easy; wild wheats still grow in dense stands today without assistance (Evans 1993; Fu et al. 2019). Although the natural dispersal mechanisms of wheat were compromised during domestication, a seed merely falling on good soil has always been capable ‘of multiplying thirty, some sixty, some a hundred times’ (Mark's Gospel c. 65 Christian Era [CE]). Some early forms of agriculture just involved broadcasting seeds onto the fertile and damp silts left by a retreating annual river flood (Scott 2017). In a modern‐day equivalent, in some rice‐wheat systems, the wheat is still established by broadcasting seed onto wet soils before or after the rice harvest (Erenstein and Laxmi 2008). Cereal grains are dry, easy to reap, simple to store, and readily transported (Evans 1993). In comparison, roots and tubers are moist, bulky, perishable, and more labour intensive to harvest and move. Compared to the early legume grain crops such as peas, beans, chickpeas, and lentils, cereal growth is more determinate. This meant that the cereal grains tended to ripen together rather than over an extended duration, depending on their position within an inflorescence and on the maturity of different stems and branches. The cereals could, therefore, be harvested efficiently over a shorter period. In terms of importance for state building, Scott (2017) emphasises the suitability of cereals for paying tribute and taxes, and for providing rations and payment. The cereal crops were ‘visible, divisible, assessable, transportable’ (Scott 2017). Additionally, cereal straw was valued for multiple uses, including roofing, livestock fodder, and animal bedding (Sinclair 1998).

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