by
Professor Dr Thomas Miedaner, Research Scientist
Why should we work with ancient cereals?
We are working together with private plant breeders in Germany and a small part of our work is with ancient cereals. Our cereals that I want to introduce are European cereals that are neglected. So we ask the question why should we work with ancient cereals? First of course, for diversity on the farm as well as gaining interesting and new features out of these cereals such as resistance to diseases or different flavours, but there are multiple others.
Key advantages:
• Greater diversity on the farm (biodiversity)
• Resistances to diseases, abiotic stress, special traits
• Nutritionally valuable
• Regional specialties and cultural diversity
• Flavour and enjoyment
However, there are not only advantages, there are of course disadvantages too.
Key disadvantages:
• Low yielding
• Difficult to plant: smaller (hulled) kernels, uneven germination, early lodging, uneven ripening
• Special problems: Loss of grain, bird damage
• More difficult to process: Dehulling, different baking properties
The main one for the farmer is low yield although there is also the difficulty to plant these cereals because as you can see they are often rather tall, as well as bird damage and the loss of grains, as well as economic performance that isn’t always good.
For the miller, farmer and baker, it is more difficult to process because it’s not this convenient product like bread wheat that we are all adjusted to. So we need an improvement by plant breeding for these cereals but we still want to take all of their original flavour and original characteristics. You can get very good products such as noodles and whiskey from spelt. But of course we have to know the characteristics of these different crops.
Looking for the growth potential
As you know, it started about 10,000 years ago with the first cereal domestication in the region of Iran, Iraq, Israel, Palestine and Syria and the archeological findings show us that about 20,000 years ago wild cereals were being collected and grinded already and used for food.
Then 10,000 years later, we have evidence of the first cultivation of barley. The neglected wheat that we are speaking of includes Emmer, Einkorn and Spelt. Looking at the different characteristics, we have a wild cereal, which is brittle and has a split head so it is losing its kernels automatically, which is important for a wild crop.
It also has hulls that we have seen in other cereals. The cultivated Emmer has no brittle head but still has the hulls, there is also the durum and the bread wheat. All these wheats have a common history that is quite long, dating back about 300,000 years ago where Wild Einkorn and Aegilops sp., combined together naturally and produced wild Emmer wheat when 10,000 years ago this wild Emmer wheat was cultivated and that in turn produced Durum wheat and Khorasan wheat as well as others.
Another lucky accident this cultivated Emmer combined with another wild wheat (T. tauschii) to produce our better-known bread and spelt wheat that are very narrowly genetically related. This activity spread to Europe over the next 5,000 years here until it reached Scandinavia and Northern Great Britain or Scotland.
The neglected wheats that we are speaking of include:
• Emmer
• Einkorn
• Different cultivations of spelt
Read the full article, HERE.
Why should we work with ancient cereals?
We are working together with private plant breeders in Germany and a small part of our work is with ancient cereals. Our cereals that I want to introduce are European cereals that are neglected. So we ask the question why should we work with ancient cereals? First of course, for diversity on the farm as well as gaining interesting and new features out of these cereals such as resistance to diseases or different flavours, but there are multiple others.
Key advantages:
• Greater diversity on the farm (biodiversity)
• Resistances to diseases, abiotic stress, special traits
• Nutritionally valuable
• Regional specialties and cultural diversity
• Flavour and enjoyment
However, there are not only advantages, there are of course disadvantages too.
Key disadvantages:
• Low yielding
• Difficult to plant: smaller (hulled) kernels, uneven germination, early lodging, uneven ripening
• Special problems: Loss of grain, bird damage
• More difficult to process: Dehulling, different baking properties
The main one for the farmer is low yield although there is also the difficulty to plant these cereals because as you can see they are often rather tall, as well as bird damage and the loss of grains, as well as economic performance that isn’t always good.
For the miller, farmer and baker, it is more difficult to process because it’s not this convenient product like bread wheat that we are all adjusted to. So we need an improvement by plant breeding for these cereals but we still want to take all of their original flavour and original characteristics. You can get very good products such as noodles and whiskey from spelt. But of course we have to know the characteristics of these different crops.
Looking for the growth potential
As you know, it started about 10,000 years ago with the first cereal domestication in the region of Iran, Iraq, Israel, Palestine and Syria and the archeological findings show us that about 20,000 years ago wild cereals were being collected and grinded already and used for food.
Then 10,000 years later, we have evidence of the first cultivation of barley. The neglected wheat that we are speaking of includes Emmer, Einkorn and Spelt. Looking at the different characteristics, we have a wild cereal, which is brittle and has a split head so it is losing its kernels automatically, which is important for a wild crop.
It also has hulls that we have seen in other cereals. The cultivated Emmer has no brittle head but still has the hulls, there is also the durum and the bread wheat. All these wheats have a common history that is quite long, dating back about 300,000 years ago where Wild Einkorn and Aegilops sp., combined together naturally and produced wild Emmer wheat when 10,000 years ago this wild Emmer wheat was cultivated and that in turn produced Durum wheat and Khorasan wheat as well as others.
Another lucky accident this cultivated Emmer combined with another wild wheat (T. tauschii) to produce our better-known bread and spelt wheat that are very narrowly genetically related. This activity spread to Europe over the next 5,000 years here until it reached Scandinavia and Northern Great Britain or Scotland.
The neglected wheats that we are speaking of include:
• Emmer
• Einkorn
• Different cultivations of spelt
Read the full article, HERE.
The Global Miller
This blog is maintained by The Global Miller staff and is supported by the magazine Milling and Grain
which is published by Perendale Publishers Limited.
For additional daily news from milling around the world: global-milling.com
No comments:
Post a Comment