Introduction

Wheat is the most important kind of crop grown in temperate countries, it is a

grass widely cultivated for a seed cereal grain which is worldwide staple food.
There are many species of wheat which together make up a genus Tritium (the
most widely grown is common wheat T.aestival). It covers more of the earth’s
surface than other cereal crops, although it takes more land space than other
cereal it is only third largest cereal crop behind maize and rice.

Wheat was introduced in Mexico by Spaniards around 1520s and to early

American colonists in the 1600s and by that time it was not popular due to soil
and climate conditions.

It is highly nutritious and functional grain and it is generally intended grown to

produce food for humans and the lesser quality wheat and the nutrient –dense-by
product of flour refining are used for animal feeding. Wheat can also be used for
whiskey, beer production and the husk can be separated and ground in brans.
Most bread even rye and oats are made with at least a portion of wheat flour
because of the two main characteristics of wheat that improve the bread. Its
characteristics are that it has high gluten flour that offer elasticity in the dough
allowing for it to rise without developing large air pockets and it is gluten and
alpha-amylase activity.

For better and productivity wheat, factors that affect the production such as
climate, soil type, soil fertility, water availability, soil pH, should be taken into
consideration.

Nitrogen is usually the most limiting nutrients for wheat production, an

inadequate Nitrogen supply can greatly reduce yield and profit. Too much
Nitrogen can results in lodging, decreased yield and record profit and
determining the optimum rate of Nitrogen fertilizer is the key to maximum
economic yield. Information on soil texture, organic matter level and yield goal is
used to select the optimum amount of Nitrogen fertilizer to apply. Sandy soil do
not have the same yield potential as finer textured soil because of their inherent
low water holding capacity and lower organic matter. Soil organic matter is
important because of the amount of Nitrogen mineralized each year, on finer
textured soil drainage plays an important role in selecting the appropriate yield
goal.

Wheat can be categorized according to their characteristics and there are several
kinds of wheat farmers produces. Winter wheat are winter hardy, so there are
planted in the fall and in spring they resume maturation and are harvested early
in the summer. Spring wheat are planted in the spring and harvested late in the
summer, the yields are significantly lower than winter wheat but offer a very high
quality for bread making. Soft wheat have starchy kernels which mill easier than
the hard wheat. Durum wheat is the hardest of all wheat and its offers both high
protein and high gluten content.

NITROGEN USE EFFICIENCY

Nitrogen is one of the most expensive nutrients to supply, and may also have an
environmental impact through nitrate leaching. The development of nitrogen
efficient cultivars will be of economic benefit to farmers and will help to reduce
environmental contaminations associated with excessive inputs of nitrogen
fertilizers in wheat yield.

ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACT OF NITROGEN

Despite the rapid increase of the yield with a great increase of human production
of nitrogen fertilizers for wheat production, an increase and evidence of
detrimental effects for higher amount of reactive nitrogen in environment will
show up. The major environmental problems are acidification of the soil water
resources, surface and groundwater contamination, increase of an ozone
depletion and crop (wheat) injury, greenhouse gas levels due to N2O emission,
loss of biodiversity in ecosystems, an invasion of N loving weeds.

In the future, we can expect that water resources for irrigation become
increasingly scarce, and fertilizer costs can increase together with costs of all
wheat inputs. Increasing N content in a wheat crop can improve nitrogen use
efficiency under drought period and with that the nitrogen uptake efficiency and
leaf nitrogen are both breeding targets for optimizing wheat yield.

DISCUSSION AND RESULTS

a. Weather conditions

Monthly mean maximum and minimum temperatures are similar to long term
values for the region. Several days during the vegetative growth period, however,
temperatures were are 2 to 4 degrees Celcius below the long term averages.