What are the types of wheat? The origins of high-yield wheat

Wheat is one of the three major grains, and almost all of it is used for food, with only about one-sixth used as feed. China is one of the earliest countries in the world to cultivate wheat. So do you know what the types of wheat are? How can wheat be grown for high yields? Let's follow along with the editor to find out.

What are the types of wheat

Wheat is divided into 30 species in total, and these 30 types of wheat are further divided into more than 30,000 varieties. Plant breeders develop new varieties through crossing (crossing two different varieties of the same species). The selection of wheat for breeding is based on its processing quality, and good cold resistance or disease resistance.

Commonly cultivated wheats include:

Winter wheat and spring wheat. Winter wheat is grown in temperate regions and sown in autumn, while spring wheat grows in places with long winters and is sown in frost-free spring. Both can produce soft wheat and hard wheat (depending on the texture of the grain).

Club wheat is a short-strawed wheat with short spikes, small grains and low gluten protein content. It is usually used to make pastry flour. Club wheat can grow in poor soil. It is mainly grown in the western United States, Canada, and mountainous areas of Europe. Club wheat is a short-strawed wheat with low gluten protein content.

Common wheat is a dominant economic crop, grown in temperate and subtropical regions. It has high gluten protein content. Common wheat is divided into hundreds of varieties——including awned wheat and awnless wheat; hard wheat and soft wheat. Common wheat is used to make bread, pastries, breakfast cereals, alcoholic beverages and more. Some varieties are used as livestock feed.

Durum wheat is an awned wheat with strong drought tolerance, hard grains and high gluten protein content. It is mainly used to make macaroni. Durum wheat is grown in many parts of the world.

Einkorn is a cold-resistant awned wheat. Each spike produces one grain. Einkorn was the first wheat to be cultivated by humans, and it is also the ancestor of many modern wheat varieties. It can grow in poor soil. Einkorn mostly grows in the mountains of southern Europe and is used as livestock feed.

Emmer is an awned wheat. It is mainly grown in Europe and Asia as livestock feed and for making pastry flour.

Persian wheat is a wheat grown in the Caucasus region.

Polish wheat is an awned wheat used to make bread. It is grown in parts of Europe and northern Africa.

Turgidum wheat is a type of wheat mostly used to make pastries and pasta. It can also be used as livestock feed. It is grown all over the world.

Wheat is divided into wheat and barley, and barley is further divided into many varieties, such as some used as malting barley for beer and some used as feed barley. Wheat is further divided into winter wheat and spring wheat, and can also be divided into high-quality specialty wheat (high-quality strong-gluten wheat) and ordinary wheat, etc. When it comes to specific planting varieties, there are even more, and they are constantly being updated. It is a monocotyledonous plant of the grass family. Annual or biennial herb. The stem is hollow and jointed. The leaves are long and lanceolate. The spike inflorescence is called a “wheat spike”, with spikelets flattened on both sides, awned or awnless. The caryopsis is the wheat grain. According to sowing time, it is divided into winter wheat and spring wheat. It is cultivated all over the world. The grain is mainly used to make flour, the bran can be used as feed, and the straw can be used for weaving, etc.

The origins of high-yield wheat

For wheat to be high-yielding, seed is the foundation and management is the key. For winter wheat, the period from emergence to overwintering is the vegetative growth stage, and its growth characteristics are mainly leaf emergence, root growth and tillering. During this period, part of the nutrients produced by the plant is used for seedling growth, and part is stored for overwintering and green-up growth in spring. Strong seedlings before winter have well-developed root systems, robust tillers, more stored nutrients and strong stress resistance, which is conducive to safe overwintering, early green-up in spring and a high spike-forming rate. Weak seedlings have sparse roots and few tillers, and produce and store fewer nutrients. Vigorous seedlings consume a large amount of nutrients for vegetative growth, so their nutrient reserves are also low. Neither of these two types of seedlings is conducive to the safe overwintering of wheat, and both have a low spike-forming rate, which will directly affect wheat yield. Therefore, for wheat to be high-yielding, doing winter management well is very critical.

1. Promote the conversion of weak seedlings into strong seedlings

Common weak seedlings mainly include the following situations: drought seedlings, deep-sown seedlings, crusted seedlings, nutrient-deficient seedlings, saline-alkali seedlings, fertilizer-burned seedlings, late-sown seedlings, etc. For deep-sown seedlings, clear the rows, remove part of the covering soil to make the soil covering the tillering node shallower, or carry out deep tillage to improve soil aeration and promote development so that the seedlings become strong; crusted seedlings are mainly due to poor aeration, which affects root absorption and causes slow plant growth, so timely intertillage and loosening of the soil should be carried out to break the crust; nutrient-deficient seedlings should be topdressed and watered in time; for saline-alkali seedlings, where conditions permit, heavy watering can be used to leach the alkali, followed by intertillage and loosening of the soil; fertilizer-burned seedlings are mainly caused by applying unrotted organic fertilizer or returning straw to the field, and watering measures should be taken; late-sown seedlings are mainly due to insufficient accumulated temperature before winter, and intertillage and loosening of the soil should be used to raise ground temperature, so as to promote their robust growth.

2. Control vigorous seedlings

One situation with vigorous seedlings is good fertilizer and water conditions and early sowing, causing the wheat seedlings to grow vigorously; another is ordinary soil fertility but, due to a high sowing rate, too many basic seedlings, too-early sowing and too-high temperatures, causing excessive seedling growth and forming vigorous seedlings. The effective measures to control vigorous seedlings are pressing and deep intertillage, which help new roots to grow out. Through these measures, aboveground growth can basically be controlled and underground growth promoted. At the same time, for vigorous seedlings, the time for watering frozen water should be delayed.

3. Prevent seedling death

Practice has proved that timely watering of frozen water can stabilize ground temperature, prevent cold waves from attacking wheat seedlings and protect wheat seedlings for safe overwintering. It prevents early-spring drought and helps cultivate strong spring seedlings; breaking up clods and firming the soil are conducive to wheat seedling growth. Sandy soil and loamy soil especially need frozen water, while low-lying land, clay land, damp land and late-sown wheat fields are not suitable for watering frozen water. Late-sown wheat fields, when necessary, still need frozen water, and this can be handled flexibly according to specific conditions. In principle, do not water if there is no tillering, so as to avoid waterlogging the seedlings, affecting growth and causing freezing damage. The time for watering frozen water should preferably be when it “thaws by day and freezes by night”.

4. Apply winter fertilizer

Apply winter fertilizer together with watering frozen water. The amount applied should not be too large, and 5-10 kg per mu is appropriate.

5. Winter pressing

Winter pressing has the effects of preserving soil moisture, preventing freezing and breaking up clods. For low-yielding fields, winter pressing should be carried out even more. However, because saline-alkali land returns alkali after pressing and sandy land becomes compacted after pressing, alkali land and sandy land are not pressed.

The nutritional value of wheat

Wheat is rich in starch, protein, fat, minerals, calcium, iron, thiamine, riboflavin, niacin and vitamin A, etc. Due to different varieties and environmental conditions, the differences in nutritional composition are relatively large. From the perspective of protein content, wheat grains grown in continental arid climate zones are hard and transparent, with relatively high protein content, reaching 14-20%, and strong and elastic gluten, suitable for baking bread; wheat grains grown under humid conditions contain 8-10% protein, are soft, and have poor gluten. It can be seen that the influence of geography and climate on the formation of the product is very important.

In addition to being used for human consumption, flour is only used in small amounts to produce starch, alcohol, gluten, etc., and the by-products after processing are all high-quality feed for livestock. Eating whole wheat can reduce the content of estrogen in the blood circulation, thereby achieving the purpose of preventing and treating breast cancer; for menopausal women, eating unrefined wheat can also relieve menopausal syndrome.

The softness or hardness of the texture of wheat grains is an important indicator for evaluating the processing quality and eating quality of wheat, and is closely related to many aspects such as wheat breeding and trade prices. Hardness is one of the important bases for classification and pricing in domestic and international wheat markets, and is also one of the important breeding goals of breeders in various countries.