The Domestication of Wheat and Other Crops
Wheat and other crops were domesticated, resulting in the birth of modern agriculture.
Background
Bread wheat, barley, oats, and rye were domesticated in the Middle East; rice and millet were domesticated in Southeast Asia; corn, beans, and squash were domesticated in Central America. Rice was domesticated around 4000 B.C., and today China and India produce nearly half of the world’s rice.
Impact
Cereals have many advantages as food plants, including a high yield per acre of growth, as well as wonderful sources of carbohydrates, fats, proteins, minerals, and vitamins. People also developed innovative uses for plants and cereals. Most domesticated crops were used for natural fibers to make clothing.
When was the wheat First domesticated?
Einkorn wheat, along with emmer wheat (T. dicoccum), was one of the first cultivated forms of wheat. Wild einkorn grains have been found in Epi-Paleolithic sites in the Fertile Crescent, and it was first domesticated around 7500 BC.
When did barley get domesticated?
Archaeological remains of barley grains discovered at various sites in the Fertile Crescent (Zohary and Hopf 1993; Diamond 1998 ) suggest that the crop was domesticated around 8000 B.C. (b.c. = calibrated dates and b.c. = uncalibrated dates, where calibration refers to normalization of radiocarbon age estimates based on radiocarbon dates based on radiocarbon dates based on radiocarbon dates based on radiocarbon dates based on radiocarbon dates based on
Who were the first to domesticate wheat?
Einkorn was likely the first domesticated hulled wheat, and it was one of the founder grain crops of Neolithic agriculture in the Near East, as well as a major species of early crop introduction in Europe. monococcum boeticum, the progenitor of domesticated einkorn [21].
Was barley and oats domesticated before wheat?
During the early Neolithic, wheat, barley, rye, oats, and flaxseeds were all domesticated in the Fertile Crescent, while farmers in China began to cultivate rice and millet, using man-made floods and fires as part of their cultivation regimen.
What is the oldest variety of wheat?
Einkorn wheat, also known as Triticum boeoticum (wild wheat) or Triticum monococcum (domesticated species), is the oldest wheat known to scientists and is considered man’s first wheat. The term einkorn comes from the German language and means “single grain.”
Which country is the world’s leading wheat producer?
China is the world’s leading wheat producer, with 134,250 thousand tonnes produced in 2020, accounting for 20.66% of global wheat production, with the top five countries (India, the Russian Federation, the United States of America, and Canada) accounting for 63.46%.
What does barley symbolize in the Bible?
Barley was much more widely cultivated in Bible times than it is now, and it was the poor’s main food (II Kings 7:1; Revelation 6:6). Although barley was occasionally used as fodder (I Kings 4:28), it was primarily used as a staple food.
Is barley and corn the same thing?
is that barley is a strong cereal of the genus hordeum, or its grains, which are often used as food or to make malted drinks, whereas corn is (uncountable) a cereal plant grown for its grain, specifically the main such plant grown in a given region, such as oats in parts of Scotland and Ireland, wheat or barley in England and Wales, and so on.
What animal eats barley?
Approximately 40% of the barley was fed to feedlot cattle, 34% to dairy cows, 20% to pigs, 6% to grazing ruminants, and 1% to poultry in Canada [4, 5]. Barley is primarily used in beef and dairy cattle diets in Canada, though some is fed to swine.
Which came first wheat or corn?
Scientists have discovered genetic evidence that the world’s four major grains—wheat, rice, corn, and sorghum—evolved from a common ancestor weed that grew 65 million years ago. The world’s first wheat, peas, cherries, olives, rye, chickpeas, and rye evolved from wild plants found in Turkey and the Middle East.
Which came first rice or wheat?
The crop was first domesticated in northern China around 10,000 years ago, around the same time as rice in southern China and barley and wheat in western China, and shepherds and herders carried it across Eurasia between 2,500 and 1,600 B.C.
How did wheat get domesticated?
Wheat was domesticated ten thousand years ago in what is now the Middle East, when humans rapidly modified the crop’s key characteristics. It differs from wild wheat in that it has non-shattering spikes, which allows the plant to retain its seeds and be harvested more easily.
Does oats come from barley?
Barley is a primary crop grown as a cereal grass, whereas oats is a secondary crop derived from a weed of primary cereal grasses such as wheat and barley; additionally, barley grains are arranged in a spike, whereas oats grow as small florets.
Is oats made from wheat?
Oats do not come from wheat; they come from the Avena sativa plant, which is a type of cereal grain and a distant relative of the grass family. Raw oats are gluten-free, whereas wheat contains the protein gluten.