What are the characteristics of wheat farming?

Modern equipment and farming practices have changed grain production from a highly labor intensive operation to one that mandates the use of large and expensive equipment. Typical wheat farms today require a large investment in land in order to sustain a profit. Wheat farmers are among the world's biggest gamblers, putting their labor for a year into the production of a crop that is always at risk to unknown markets and the ravages of weather and Mother Nature. Read more: http://wiki.answers.com/Q/What_are_the_characteristics_of_wheat_farming#ixzz1gdZ0f9Dr

Wheat (Triticum spp.) is a cereal grain, originally from the Levant region of the Near East and Ethiopian Highlands, but now cultivated worldwide. In 2007 world production of wheat was 607 million tons, making it the third most[2] produced cereal after maize (784 million tons) and rice (651 million tons). In 2009, world production of wheat was 682 million tons, making it the second most-produced cereal after maize (817 million tons), and with rice as close third (679 [3] million tons). Wheat is grown on more land area than any other commercial crop and is the most important staple food for humans. [4] World trade in wheat is greater than for all other crops combined. Globally, wheat is the leading source of vegetable protein in human food, having a higher protein content than either maize (corn) or rice, the other major cereals. In terms of total production tonnages used for food, it is currently second to rice as the main human food crop and ahead of maize, after allowing for maize's more extensive use in animal feeds. Wheat was a key factor enabling the emergence of city-based societies at the start of civilization because it was one of the first crops that could be easily cultivated on a large scale, and had the additional advantage of yielding a harvest that provides long-term storage of food. Wheat contributed to the emergence of city-states in the Fertile Crescent, including the Babylonian and Assyrian empires. Wheat grain is a staple food used to make flour for leavened, flat and [5] steamed breads, biscuits, cookies, cakes, breakfast cereal, pasta, noodles, couscous and for fermentation to make [6] [7] [8] beer, otheralcoholic beverages, or biofuel. Wheat is planted to a limited extent as a forage crop for livestock, and its straw can be used as a construction material for [9][10] roofing thatch. The whole grain can be milled to leave just the endosperm for white flour. The products of this are bran and germ. The whole grain is a concentrated source ofvitamins, minerals, and protein, while the refined grain is mostly starch.

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History
Wheat is one of the first cereals known to have been domesticated, and wheat's ability to self-pollinate greatly facilitated the selection of many distinct domesticated varieties. The archaeological record suggests that this first occurred in the regions known as the Fertile Crescent, and the Nile Delta. These include southeastern parts of Turkey, Lebanon, Syria, the Levant, Israel, Egypt and Ethiopia. Recent findings narrow the first domestication of wheat down to a small region of [11] southeastern Turkey, and domesticated Einkorn wheat at Neval ori40 miles (64 km) northwest of Gobekli [12] Tepe in Turkeyhas been dated to 9,000 B.C. However evidence for the exploitation of wild barley has been dated to [13] 23,000 B.C. and some say this is also true of pre-domesticated wheat.

Origin
Archaeological analysis of wild emmer indicates that it was first cultivated in the southern Levant with finds at Iraq ed[14][15] Dubb in northern Jordan dating back as far as 9600 BC. Genetic analysis of wild einkorn wheat suggests that it was first grown in the Karacadag Mountains in southeastern Turkey. Dated archeological remains of einkorn wheat in settlement sites near this region, including those at Abu Hureyra in Syria, suggests the domestication of einkorn near the Karacadag Mountain Range. With the anomalous exception of two grains from Iraq ed-Dubb, the earliest carbon-14 date [16] for einkorn wheat remains at Abu Hureyra is 7800 to 7500 years BC. Remains of harvested emmer from several sites near the Karacadag Range have been dated to between 8600 (at Cayonu) and 8400 BC (Abu Hureyra), that is, in the Neolithic period. With the exception of Iraq ed-Dubb, the earliest carbon-14 dated remains of domesticated emmer wheat were found in the earliest levels of Tell Aswad, in the Damascus basin, near Mount Hermon in Syria. These remains were dated by Willem van Zeist and his assistant Johanna Bakker-Heeres to 8800 BCE. They also concluded that the settlers of Tell Aswad did not develop this form of emmer themselves, but brought the domesticated grains with [17] them from an as yet unidentified location elsewhere. Cultivation and repeated harvesting and sowing of the grains of wild grasses led to the creation of domestic strains, as mutant forms ('sports') of wheat were preferentially chosen by farmers. In domesticated wheat, grains are larger, and the seeds (spikelets) remain attached to the ear by a toughened rachis during harvesting. In wild strains, a more fragile rachis [18] allows the ear to easily shatter and disperse the spikelets. Selection for these traits by farmers might not have been deliberately intended, but simply have occurred because these traits made gathering the seeds easier; nevertheless such 'incidental' selection was an important part of crop domestication. As the traits that improve wheat as a food source also involve the loss of the plant's natural seed dispersal mechanisms, highly domesticated strains of wheat cannot survive in the wild. Cultivation of wheat began to spread beyond the Fertile Crescent after about 8000 BC. Jared Diamond traces the spread of cultivated emmer wheat starting in the Fertile Crescent about 8500 BC, reaching Greece, Cyprus and India by 6500 [19] BC, Egypt shortly after 6000 BC, and Germany and Spain by 5000 BC. "The early Egyptians were developers of bread [20] and the use of the oven and developed baking into one of the first large-scale food production industries." By 3000 BCE, wheat had reached England, and Scandinavia. A millennium later it reached China. Wheat spread throughout Europe and in England; thatch was used for roofing in the Bronze Age, and was in common use [21] until the late 19th century. [edit]Farming

techniques

Technological advances in soil preparation and seed placement at planting time, use of crop rotation and fertilizers to improve plant growth, and advances in harvesting methods have all combined to promote wheat as a viable crop. Agricultural cultivation using horse collar leveraged plows (at about 3000 BCE) was one of the first innovations that increased productivity. Much later, when the use of seed drills replaced broadcasting sowing of seed in the 18th century, another great increase in productivity occurred. Yields of wheat per unit area increased as methods of crop rotation were applied to long cultivated land, and the use of fertilizers became widespread. Improved agricultural husbandry has more recently included threshing machines and reaping machines (the 'combine harvester'), tractor-drawn cultivators and planters, and better varieties (see Green Revolution and Norin 10 wheat). Great expansions of wheat production occurred as new arable land was farmed in the Americas and Australia in the 19th and 20th centuries.

Wheat is a type of grass grown all over the world for its highly nutritious and useful grain. It is one of the top three most produced crops in the world, along with corn and rice. Wheat has been cultivated for over 10,000 years and probably originates in the Fertile Crescent, along with other staple crops. A wide range of wheat products are made by humans, including most famously flour, which is made from the grain itself. Today, wheat is a grass that grows between two and four feet ( to 1 meters) tall. The physical appearance of the grain is familiar to most consumers, with a long stalk that terminates in a tightly formed cluster of plump kernels enclosed by a beard of bristly spikes. Wheat is an annual, which means that at the end of each year, fields must be plowed and prepared again to grow the grass. Ancestral wheats probably looked very different, with much smaller kernels. The early domesticators of wheat obviously wanted to select for plants with particularly large kernels, since more nutrition could be eked out from each stalk. Because wheat is generally a self pollinating plant, each plant tends to produce clones of itself. When farmers want to hybridize a wheatstrain, they must physically pollinate the different plants. Farmers blending wheat for various purposes usually combine different seeds at harvest time and spread them evenly over the field. The wheat grown in the United States falls into two categories: winter wheat, which is planted in the fall and matures in the summer, and spring wheat, which is planted after the danger of frost is over and also matures in the summer. Wheat's characteristic golden color at harvest time is well known and often appears in artwork that uses wheat. When wheat is ready for harvest, the heads of the grain start to bend the stalks with the weight of the kernels. This, in combination with the golden color, indicates that it is time to harvest thewheat. After harvest, the grain is separated from the stalks and chaff. Wheat stalks are used in a variety of applications: mulch, construction material, and animal bedding, for example. On organic farms, livestock are often turned loose on the wheat field after harvest to clean up the leftovers. Once the kernels have been separated, they can be ground into flour. There are many classifications for flour, depending on what part of the seed is used and how hard theendosperm, the largest part of the kernel, is. Wheat kernels have three parts: the small germ, the large endosperm, and the rough outer casing known as the bran. Hard wheats are suitable for making pasta and bread, and soft wheats are used for other wheat products that do not require a high gluten content. If a flour is made solely from the endosperm, it is known as white flour. If the germ is ground as well, the product is called germ flour. Flour that uses the whole kernel is called whole wheat. When making flour that doesn't use the whole kernel, the bran and germ are processed and sold separately. After harvest, the field is cleared and prepared for planting again. Farmers using good rotation practices do not plant wheat in sequential years, although they may return to the field later.