High-yield wheat
High-yield wheat refers to varieties that have been selectively bred or genetically modified to maximize crop yields, significantly contributing to global food production. As the most important grain crop, wheat serves as a staple food for approximately 35% of the world’s population and is crucial for food security. The Green Revolution of the 20th century played a pivotal role in developing higher-yielding wheat varieties, utilizing advancements in genetics and agricultural practices to enhance seed production and size. Key methods in this process include the selective breeding of plants exhibiting desirable traits, as well as the use of recombinant DNA technology to transfer advantageous genetic characteristics.
While high-yield wheat has greatly increased food availability, it has also transformed agricultural practices, leading to concerns about environmental sustainability. The mechanization of farming, as well as the reliance on chemical fertilizers and pesticides, raises questions about the ecological impacts of large-scale wheat production. Furthermore, the widespread adoption of monoculture farming—focusing on a single crop—can reduce biodiversity and potentially harm soil health. Overall, high-yield wheat represents both a significant agricultural advancement and a complex challenge for sustainable farming practices.
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High-yield wheat
DEFINITION: Varieties of wheat that have been bred or otherwise genetically modified to produce maximum crop yields
High-yield wheat has helped to increase food production worldwide, but the development of such wheat and other high-yield crops has also changed the structure of agriculture, with some negative effects on the environment.
Wheat (Triticum sativum) is the world’s most important grain crop because it serves as a major food source for most of the world’s population. Large portions of agricultural land are devoted to the production of wheat worldwide. Wheat constitutes a large part of the domestic economy of the United States, contributes a large part to the nation’s exports, and serves as the national bread crop. Wheat is the national food staple for forty-three countries and about 35 percent of the people of the world, and it provides 20 percent of the total food calories for the world’s population.
No one knows for certain when wheat was first cultivated, but by six thousand years ago, humans had discovered that seeds from wheat plants could be collected, planted in land that could be controlled, and later gathered for food. As human populations continued to grow, farmers found it necessary to select and produce increasingly high-yielding wheat. The Green Revolution of the twentieth century helped to make this possible. Agricultural scientists djieveloped new, higher-yielding varieties of numerous crops, particularly the seed grains such as wheat that supply most of the calories necessary for maintenance of the world’s population.
Wheat, like other major crops, originated from a low-yield native plant, but it has been converted into one of the highest-yielding crops in the world. There are two major ways to improve yield in seed grains such as wheat. One way is to produce more seed per seed head, and the second way is to produce larger seed heads. Both of these approaches have been utilized to produce high-yield wheat.
Numerous agricultural practices are required to produce higher yields, but one of the most important is the selection and breeding of genetically superior cultivars. When a grower observes a plant with a potentially desirable gene mutation that produces a change that improves a yield characteristic, the grower collects its seed and grows additional plants, which produces higher yields. This selection process remains one of the major means of improving yield in agricultural crops. Advances in the understanding of genetics have made it possible to breed some of the desirable characteristics that have resulted from mutation into plants that lacked those characteristics. In addition, the advent of recombinant deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) technology has made it possible for scientists to transfer genetic characteristics from one plant to any other plant.
While tremendous increases in the world’s food supply have resulted from the planting of crops such as high-yield wheat, the changes in agriculture accompanying the production of these crops have had some negative impacts on the environment. The production of high-yield wheat in modern agricultural units is highly mechanized and, thus, uses large amounts of energy; in addition, it is highly reliant on agricultural chemicals such as fertilizers and pesticides. The development of the new crop varieties also has led to an increased reliance on monoculture, the practice of growing only one crop over a vast number of hectares.
Bibliography
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