Wheat was first domesticated in the Fertile Crescent around 8800 BCE from wild emmer and einkorn grasses. It spread throughout Europe, Asia, and parts of Africa by 3000 BCE. Wheat evolved through natural hybridization events from diploid to tetraploid to hexaploid species. Modern bread wheat is a hexaploid species that evolved through hybridization of domesticated emmer wheat with Aegilops tauschii, a wild grass.

2. History and Evolution of Wheat
BY
OMER MUMTAZ

3. CONTENTS
 INTRODUCTION
 IMPORTANCE
 HISTORY
 EVOLUTION

4. INTRODUCTION
 Triticum aestivum L .
 Hexaploid Specie (AABBDD) having 2n=6x=42
 Self pollinated
 Wheat supplies about 20% of the food calories for about 2 Billion
people (36% Worlds Population)
 The per capita wheat consumption of the country (130 kg per year) & is
among the highest rankings in the world.

5. Importance
 Wheat is the second most produced cereal in the world.
 Provides a large fraction of the dietary protein and total food supply,
and is grown all throughout the world.
 Wheat occupies a supreme position in the food grains of Pakistan it
covers 66% of the total area under food grains and contributes 74% of
the total food grain production.

6. Cont…
 Wheat alone contributes 13.8% to the value added in agriculture
and 3.4% towards GDP of Pakitsan.
 A large variety of food that include bread, chapaties, cakes,
noodles, crackers, biscuits, macronies and many other items are
prepared from wheat.

7. Wheat Statistic: 2015-2016
Location
Area
(000, Ha)
Production
(000, tons)
Yield
(Kg/Ha)
Pakistan 9260 4920 4301
KPK 470.9 914.8 1943
Source: PBS., 2016

8. History
 Cultivation and repeated harvesting and sowing of the grains of wild
grasses led to the creation of domestic strains, as mutant forms of wheat
were preferentially chosen by farmers.
 In domesticated wheat, grains are larger, and the seeds (inside the
spikelets) remain attached to the spike by a toughened rachis during
harvesting.
 Cultivation of wheat began to spread beyond the Fertile Crescent after
about 8000 BCE.

9. Cont…
 Jared Diamond traces the spread of cultivated emmer wheat
starting in the Fertile Crescent sometime before 8800 BCE.
 Archaeological analysis of wild emmer indicates that it was first
cultivated in the southern Levant with finds dating back as far as
9600 BCE.
 Genetic analysis of wild einkorn wheat suggests that it was first
grown the in southeastern Turkey.

10. Cont….
 Dated archeological remains of einkorn wheat in settlement sites
near this region, including those at Abu Hureyra in Syria, suggest
the domestication of einkorn near the eastern Turkey.
 The cultivation of emmer reached Greece, Cyprus and India by
6500 BCE.
 In Egypt shortly after 6000 BCE.
 Germany and Spain by 5000 BCE.

11. Cont…
 By 3000 BCE, wheat had reached the British islands and
Denmark, Norway and Sweden.
 A millennium later it reached China.
 The oldest evidence for hexaploid wheat has been confirmed
through DNA analysis of wheat seeds, dating to around 6400-6200
BCE, recovered from southern Anatolia.
 From Asia, wheat continued to spread throughout Europe.

12. Evolution
 Einkorn wheat (T. monococcum) is diploid (AA, two
complements of seven chromosomes, 2n=14).
 Most tetraploid wheats (e.g. emmer and durum wheat) are derived
from wild emmer, T. dicoccoides.
 Wild emmer is itself the result of a hybridization between two
diploid wild grasses.

13. Cont…
 The hybridization that formed wild emmer (AABB) occurred in the
wild, long before domestication and was driven by natural selection.
 Hexaploid wheats evolved in farmers' fields. Either domesticated
emmer or durum wheat hybridized with yet another wild diploid grass
(Aegilops tauschii) to make the hexaploid wheats, spelt wheat and
bread wheat.
 These have three sets of paired chromosomes, three times as many as
in diploid wheat.