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Classificatie :

Klasse: Spermatopsida - Orde: Ranunculales - Familie: Ranunculaceae (Ranonkelfamilie) - Geslacht: Ficaria (Speenkruid) - Soort: Ficaria verna

Names: Ficaria is derived from the Latin word Ficus (Fig), because of the shape of the root nodules.
Other names: lesser celandine or pilewort, fig buttercup (N Amerika)
Scharbockskraut (Germany)

Where:
The distribution area of common celandine spice covers all of Europe, the Caucasus, Western Siberia and Central Asia. The plant is common on moist soils, along wet forest edges and ditches.

Description:
It is a hairless perennial, with spirally-arranged cordate dark-green leaves without stipules. It produces actinomorphic (radially symmetrical) flowers with 3 sepaloid tepals and 7-12 glossy yellow tepals. The stamens are numerous, and the fruit is a single-seeded achene  It blooms between March and May

Medicinal traits: Ficaria verna was eaten as spinach. Young plants are rich in vitamin C and served as a middle against scurvy (German name is Scharbockskraut). In the course of spring, however, the content of toxic substances increases.

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After the last ice age, more than 10,000 years ago, the steppe that covered Belgium was transformed into a vast and almost continuous forest. From the beginning of the first agricultural activities, almost 7,500 years ago, until the 19th century, certain regions were deforested and brought into cultivation. On the biological level, this moderate deforestation led to a greater diversity of habitats , fauna and flora. The industrial revolution, however, caused major changes in the landscape. Agriculture became more intensive and therefore less nature-friendly, with a lot of city and a high population density.
In terms of relief and land use, Belgium can be roughly divided into three zones: • a flat and mostly sandy north (Lower Belgium), where intensive agriculture and livestock farming dominate; • a central part with mainly loess soil (central Belgium), with a lot of industry and, • a hilly to mountainous south with rocky or weathered soils (High Belgium), where forestry and less intensive agriculture

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Jenever , 
made with the berry like fruit of the Juniperus Communis, a typical shrub of the heathland in the Limburg Kempen

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Jenever , 
made with the berry like fruit of the Juniperus Communis, a typical shrub of the heathland in the Limburg Kempen

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Een bezoek aan het Jenevermuseum maakt je jeneverwijs. Met aandacht voor geest én lichaam, maakt het Jenevermuseum van je bezoek een beleving.

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The "lijsterbespark" in Merchtem, the municipality where I live. Merchtem is located in the northwest corner of Flemish Brabant at 20 km from Brussels. This area is a very wet with two little streams that cross the park and with several ponds and pools. There is a lot of biodiversity of flora and fauna and the park is managed in an ecological way.

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Buggenhoutbos is a vast old forest of about 200 hectares, located in Buggenhout, East Flanders. It is a mixed forest with beech, oak, birch, hornbeam and so on. The management focuses on a wide variety of trees, a lot of structure (old and young trees, several layers), open spaces. That results in a large diversity of fauna and flora.

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Tropical and subtropical coniferous forests

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The Hoge Kempen National Park in Limburg, in the east of Belgium. This is the region I’m coming from. The landscape is dominated by extensive heathland surrounded by dense pine forests. The mineral lakes are like mirrors in the heath. Small streams spring up flanked by beautiful wet heaths.

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Classificatie  Klasse: Spermatopsida - Orde: Boraginales - Familie: Boraginaceae (Ruwbladigenfamilie) - Genus: Symphytum (Smeerwortel) - Soort: Symphytum officinale

Names: comfrey, common comfrey or true comfrey. Other English names include Quaker comfrey, cultivated comfrey, boneset, knitbone, consound, and slippery-root.

Where: It is native to Europe, growing in damp, grassy places.

Description: The plant is 40-100 cm high, with white, pink or purple flowers clustered close together in a hanging cluster from May to August. The flowers are bell-shaped, 2-4 cm in size. The sepals are pointed, and 1/3 of the tubular, intergrown petals.
The leaves are rough-haired. The round, hollow stems are branched. The root is black on the outside, white on the inside

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Medicinal traits, Symphytum officinale roots were used in traditional medicine internally (as an herbal tea or tincture), vegetables, or externally (as ointment, compresses, or alcoholic digestion) for treatment of various disorders, including commonly as a treatment for reducing the pain of osteoarthritis.

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Who is Alexander von Humboldt? - George Mehler

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The Hoge Kempen National Park ( Nationaal Park Hoge Kempen) is the first National Park in Flanders, Belgium. It is located in the East of the Province of Limburg, between Genk and the Meuse River (Dutch: Maas) Valley.

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Flanders enjoys a temperate maritime climate. The relief is mostly flat with some valleys and hills. The soil is sandy with scattered, clay-rich zones and a rising proportion of loam inland

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·       The environment of Belgium is generally affected by the high population density in most of the country.

·       Biodiversity is lower in Flanders than in Wallonia because of population density and fragmentation of habitats, but efforts are being made to boost bio-diversity through connecting fragmented forests and national parks through wildlife crossing "ecoducts" such as in Kikbeek

·       In Flanders, emission of non-methane-VOC has decreased from 200 kton in 1990 to around 100 kton in 2006, because of lower emissions from transport and industry. These two however remain the most important VOC polluters

Agricultural areas have high concentrations of phosphates due to heavy use of fertilizers in the past

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The environment of Belgium is generally affected by the high population density in most of the country. However, due to consistent efforts by the various levels of government in Belgium, the state of the environment in Belgium is gradually improving.

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Cosmos: A Sketch of a Physical Description of the Universe  is an influential work on science and nature written by the German scientist and explorer Alexander von Humboldt. Cosmos began as a lecture series delivered by Humboldt at the University of Berlin, and was published in five volumes between 1845 and 1862 . In the first volume of Cosmos, Humboldt paints a general “portrait of nature”, describing the physical nature of outer space and the Earth. In the second volume he describes the history of science. It applied the ancient Greek view of the orderliness of the cosmos (the harmony of the universe) to the Earth, suggesting that universal laws applied as well to the apparent chaos of the terrestrial world.
Cosmos was influenced by Humboldt's various travels and studies, but mainly by his journey throughout the Americas. Von Humboldt was the first person to describe the phenomenon and cause of human-induced climate change, in 1800 and again in 1831, based on observations generated during his travels.

Cosmos was highly popular when it was released, with the first volume selling out in two months, and the work translated into most European languages.  The work is still considered to be a substantial scientific and literary achievement, having influenced subsequent scientific progress and imparted a unifying perspective to the studies of science, nature, and mankind

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Tropical Andean trees migrate to higher altitudes where the air is cool enough to support their existence. Due to the fast climatic change they have to move faster in order to remain in equilibrium with their preferred temperatures.

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comparison wtith others:
I am impressed by the interesting information on the padlets of the other students. Although we always hear that biodiversity is decreasing, I have noticed that there are still many beautiful places ... nice pictures and interesting links.

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comparison wtith others:
I am impressed by the interesting information on the padlets of the other students. Although we always hear that biodiversity is decreasing, I have noticed that there are still many beautiful places ... nice pictures and interesting links.

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Climate change Belgium

Air temperature changes until now

In Belgium, over the course of the 20th century, there were very marked and quite severe increases in seasonal and annual temperatures (in the order of 1°C) during two periods, firstly during the first half of the 20th century and then in the 1980s (2). According to a recent report (5), meteorological observations in Ukkel since 1830 point to a temperature increase of some 2 °C over the entire period 1830-2010. The frequency of heat waves shows a significant upward trend towards the middle of the 1990s. However, the variability of this parameter is important throughout the 20th century and the characteristics of heat waves in recent years are relatively similar to those observed in the 1940s, following the warmer summer temperatures observed during the first part of the 20th century

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België in een veranderend klimaat. Alles over klimaatverandering, kwetsbaarheid en adaptatiestrategieën voor alle Europese landen.

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The evolution of the average temperature in Belgium

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The evolution of the average temperature in Belgium

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The figure below shows an estimate for the change of temperature for Belgium for the different future scenarios as calculated with the climate model of the KMI.

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A (not so) new alien in Belgium, due to the climate warming

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A (not so) new alien in Belgium, due to the climate warming

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Brachypodium phoenicoides (Poaceae), a (not so) new alien in Belgium

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A large, apparently well-established population of Brachypodium phoenicoides, a predominantly western Mediterranean species, was discovered on a spoil tip slope in Winterslag-Genk (province of Limburg, Belgium) in 2016. A subsequent revision of herbarium collections stored in the Botanic Garden Meise showed that this species was already collected in 1946 in coastal dunes in De Panne.

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What to think about the cultivation of biofuel crops.

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What to think about the cultivation of biofuel crops.

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Replacing fossil fuels with biofuel crops can indeed create new problems. For instance: using land that is needed to produce food for humans.
I think there are many initiatives to develop new sources of energy, but that will certainly not be enough in the near future to replace fossil fuels.
What we need is a plan with different steps: replacement of fossil fuels with renewable fuels such as solar, water and wind energy. But first of all we must use energy wisely and use less energy. That means a different way of life.

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Jenever was originally produced by distilling malt wine ( moutwijn in Dutch) to 50% ABV. Because the resulting spirit was not palatable due to the lack of refined distilling techniques (only the pot still was available), herbs were added to mask the flavour.

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Juniperus communis , the common juniper, is a species of conifer in the genus , in the family Cupressaceae. It has the largest geographical range of any woody plant, with a circumpolar distribution throughout the cool temperate Northern Hemisphere from the Arctic south in mountains to around 30°N latitude in North America, Europe and Asia.

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Belgium is known for its hundreds of types of beers.

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Belgium is known for its hundreds of types of beers.

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Beer in Belgium varies from pale lager to amber ales, lambic beers, Flemish red ales, sour brown ales, strong ales and stouts. In 2016, there were approximately 224 active breweries in Belgium, including international companies, such as AB InBev, and traditional breweries including Trappist monasteries.

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Brewing is the production of beer by steeping a starch source (commonly cereal grains, the most popular of which is barley) in water and fermenting the resulting sweet liquid with yeast. It may be done in a brewery by a commercial brewer, at home by a homebrewer, or by a variety of traditional methods such as communally by the indigenous peoples in Brazil when making cauim.

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Christmas tree at the centre of the Grand Place in Brussels last year.

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Christmas tree at the centre of the Grand Place in Brussels last year.

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The typical Christmas tree in Belgium threatened by a beetle

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The typical Christmas tree in Belgium threatened by a beetle

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European bark beetles have the ability to spread quickly over large areas. Some scientists hypothesize that long-distance movements originating from the Iberian Peninsula may have contributed to their invasion of northern Norway spruce forests. Movements like this can happen when various environmental factors such as severe storms, drought, or mass fungal infections damage or kill host trees.

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Viscum album is a hemiparasite on several species of trees, from which it draws water and nutrients. It has a significant role in European mythology, legends, and customs. In modern times, it is commonly featured in Christmas decoration and symbology. ( V.

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The potato is a starchy food, a tuber of the plant Solanum tuberosum and is a root vegetable native to the Americas. The plant is a perennial in the nightshade family Solanaceae.

Wild potato species can be found from the southern United States to southern Chile. The potato was originally believed to have been domesticated ( § History) by Native Americans independently in multiple locations, but later genetic studies traced a single origin, in the area of present-day southern Peru and extreme northwestern Bolivia. Potatoes were domesticated there approximately 7,000-10,000 years ago, from a species in the S. brevicaule complex. In the Andes region of South America, where the species is indigenous, some close relatives of the potato are cultivated.

Potatoes were introduced to Europe from the Americas by the Spanish in the second half of the 16th century. Today they are a staple food in many parts of the world and an integral part of much of the world's food supply. As of 2014, potatoes were the world's fourth-largest food crop after maize (corn), wheat, and rice. Following millennia of selective breeding, there are now over 5,000 different types of potatoes. Over 99% of potatoes presently cultivated worldwide descend from varieties that originated in the lowlands of south-central Chile. The importance of the potato as a food source and culinary ingredient varies by region and is still changing. It remains an essential crop in Europe, especially Northern and Eastern Europe, where per capita production is still the highest in the world, while the most rapid expansion in production during the 21st century was in southern and eastern Asia, with China and India leading the world production of 376 million tonnes (370,000,000 long tons; 414,000,000 short tons), as of 2021.

Like the tomato, the potato is a nightshade in the genus Solanum, and the vegetative and fruiting parts of the potato contain the toxin solanine which is dangerous for human consumption. Normal potato tubers that have been grown and stored properly produce glycoalkaloids in negligible amounts, but, if green sections of the plant (namely sprouts and skins) are exposed to light, the tuber can accumulate a high enough concentration of glycoalkaloids to affect human health.

The English word "potato" comes from Spanish patata (the name used in Spain). The Royal Spanish Academy says the Spanish word is a hybrid of the Taíno ( sweet potato) and the Quechua (potato). The name originally referred to the sweet potato although the two plants are not biologically closely related, despite their similar appearance. The 16th-century English herbalist John Gerard referred to sweet potatoes as "common potatoes", and used the terms "bastard potatoes" and "Virginia potatoes" for the species now known as potato. In many of the chronicles detailing agriculture and plants no distinction is made between the two. Potatoes are occasionally referred to as "Irish potatoes" or "white potatoes" in the United States, to distinguish them from sweet potatoes.

The name "spud" for a potato comes from the digging of soil (or a hole) prior to the planting of potatoes. The word has an unknown origin and was originally ( c. 1440) used as a term for a short knife or dagger, probably related to the Latin spad-, a word root meaning "sword"; compare Spanish espada, English "spade", and " spadroon". It subsequently transferred over to a variety of digging tools. Around 1845, the name transferred to the tuber itself, the first record of this usage being in New Zealand English. The origin of the word spud has erroneously been attributed to an 18th-century activist group dedicated to keeping the potato out of Britain, calling itself the Society for the Prevention of Unwholesome Diet (SPUD), for whose existence there is no evidence. Mario Pei's 1949 The Story of Language was responsible for the word's false etymology; he wrote "the potato, for its part, was in disrepute some centuries ago. Some Englishmen who did not fancy potatoes formed a Society for the Prevention of Unwholesome Diet. The initials of the main words in this title gave rise to spud." Like many other claimed pre-20th century acronymic origins, this is false.

At least six languages-Afrikaans, Dutch, French, (West) Frisian, Hebrew, Persian and some variants of German-are known to use a term for "potato" that translates roughly (or literally) into English as "earth apple" or "ground apple".

Taxonomic synonyms

Description

Potato plants are herbaceous perennials that grow about 60 cm (24 in) high, depending on variety, with the leaves dying back after flowering, fruiting and tuber formation. They bear white, pink, red, blue, or purple flowers with yellow stamens. Potatoes are mostly cross-pollinated by insects such as bumblebees, which carry pollen from other potato plants, though a substantial amount of self-fertilizing occurs as well. Tubers form in response to decreasing day length, although this tendency has been minimized in commercial varieties.

After flowering, potato plants produce small green fruits that resemble green cherry tomatoes, each containing about 300 seeds. Like all parts of the plant except the tubers, the fruit contain the toxic alkaloid solanine and are therefore unsuitable for consumption. All new potato varieties are grown from seeds, also called "true potato seed", "TPS" or "botanical seed" to distinguish it from seed tubers. New varieties grown from seed can be propagated vegetatively by planting tubers, pieces of tubers cut to include at least one or two eyes, or cuttings, a practice used in greenhouses for the production of healthy seed tubers. Plants propagated from tubers are clones of the parent, whereas those propagated from seed produce a range of different varieties.

Potatoes, both S. tuberosum and most of its wild relatives, are self-incompatible: they bear no useful fruit when self-pollinated. This trait is problematic for crop breeding, as all sexually-produced plants must be hybrids. The gene responsible for its trait as well as mutations to disable it are now known. Self-compatibility has successfully been introduced both to diploid potatoes (including a special line of S. tuberosum) by CRISPR-Cas9. Plants having a 'Sli' gene produce pollen which is compatible to its own parent and plants with similar S genes. This gene was recently cloned by Wageningen University and Solynta in 2021, which would allow for faster and more focused breeding.

Diploid hybrid potato breeding is a recent area of potato genetics supported by the finding that simultaneous homozygosity and fixation of donor alleles is possible.

Wild potato species useful for breeding include Solanum desmissum, S. stoloniferum, S. bulbocastanum, S. phureja, S. pinnatisectum, S. verrucosum, S. chacoense, S. berthaulti, S. vernei, S. polytrichon, S. simplicifolium, S. microdontum, and Solanum ruiz-ceballosii.

There are about 5,000 potato varieties worldwide. Three thousand of them are found in the Andes alone, mainly in Peru, Bolivia, Ecuador, Chile, and Colombia. They belong to eight or nine species, depending on the taxonomic school. Apart from the 5,000 cultivated varieties, there are about 200 wild species and subspecies, many of which can be cross-bred with cultivated varieties. Cross-breeding has been done repeatedly to transfer resistances to certain pests and diseases from the gene pool of wild species to the gene pool of cultivated potato species.

The major species grown worldwide is S. tuberosum (a tetraploid with 48 chromosomes), and modern varieties of this species are the most widely cultivated. There are also four diploid species (with 24 chromosomes): S.stenotomum, , S.goniocalyx, and S.ajanhuiri. There are two triploid species (with 36 chromosomes): and S.juzepczukii. There is one pentaploid cultivated species (with 60 chromosomes): S.curtilobum. There are two major subspecies of S. tuberosum: andigena, or Andean; and tuberosum, or Chilean. The Andean potato is adapted to the short-day conditions prevalent in the mountainous equatorial and tropical regions where it originated; the Chilean potato, however, native to the Chiloé Archipelago, is adapted to the long-day conditions prevalent in the higher latitude region of southern Chile.

The International Potato Center (CIP), based in Lima, Peru, holds 4,870 types of potato germplasm, most of which are traditional landrace cultivars. The international Potato Genome Sequencing Consortium announced in 2009 that they had achieved a draft sequence of the potato genome, containing 12 chromosomes and 860 million base pairs, making it a medium-sized plant genome. More than 99 percent of all current varieties of potatoes currently grown are direct descendants of a subspecies that once grew in the lowlands of south-central Chile. Nonetheless, genetic testing of the wide variety of cultivars and wild species affirms that all potato subspecies derive from a single origin in the area of present-day southern Peru and extreme Northwestern Bolivia (from a species in the S. brevicaule complex).

Most modern potatoes grown in North America arrived through European settlement and not independently from the South American sources, although at least one wild potato species, , occurs in North America, where it is used in breeding for resistance to a nematode species that attacks cultivated potatoes. A secondary center of genetic variability of the potato is Mexico, where important wild species that have been used extensively in modern breeding are found, such as the hexaploid , as a source of resistance to the devastating late blight disease (Phytophthora infestans). Another relative native to this region, Solanum bulbocastanum, has been used to genetically engineer the potato to resist potato blight. Many such wild relatives are useful for breeding resistance to P. infestans.

Little of the diversity found in ancestral and wild relative is found outside of the original South American range. This makes these South American species highly valuable in breeding.

There are close to 4,000 varieties of potatoes, each of which has specific agricultural or culinary attributes. Around 80 varieties are commercially available in the UK. In general, varieties are categorized into a few main groups based on common characteristics, such as russet potatoes (rough brown skin), red potatoes, white potatoes, yellow potatoes (also called Yukon potatoes) and purple potatoes.

For culinary purposes, varieties are often differentiated by their waxiness: floury or mealy baking potatoes have more starch (20-22%) than waxy boiling potatoes (16-18%). The distinction may also arise from variation in the comparative ratio of two different potato starch compounds: amylose and amylopectin. Amylose, a long-chain molecule, diffuses from the starch granule when cooked in water, and lends itself to dishes where the potato is mashed. Varieties that contain a slightly higher amylopectin content, which is a highly branched molecule, help the potato retain its shape after being boiled in water. Potatoes that are good for making potato chips or potato crisps are sometimes called "chipping potatoes", which means they meet the basic requirements of similar varietal characteristics, being firm, fairly clean, and fairly well-shaped.

Immature potatoes may be sold fresh from the field as "" or "" potatoes and are particularly valued for their taste. They are typically small in size and tender, with a loose skin, and flesh containing a lower level of starch than other potatoes. In the United States they are generally either a Yukon Gold potato or a red potato, called gold creamers or red creamers respectively. In the UK, the Jersey Royal is a famous type of new potato. They are distinct from "baby", "salad" or " fingerling" potatoes, which are small and tend to have waxy flesh, but are grown to maturity and can be stored for months before being sold.

The European Cultivated Potato Database (ECPD) is an online collaborative database of potato variety descriptions that is updated and maintained by the Scottish Agricultural Science Agency within the framework of the European Cooperative Programme for Crop Genetic Resources Networks (ECP/GR)-which is run by the International Plant Genetic Resources Institute (IPGRI).

Pigmentation

Dozens of potato cultivars have been selectively bred specifically for their skin or, more commonly, flesh color, including gold, red, and blue varieties that contain varying amounts of phytochemicals, including carotenoids for gold/yellow or polyphenols for red or blue cultivars. Carotenoid compounds include provitamin A alpha-carotene and beta-carotene, which are converted to the essential nutrient, vitamin A, during digestion. Anthocyanins mainly responsible for red or blue pigmentation in potato cultivars do not have nutritional significance, but are used for visual variety and consumer appeal. In 2010, potatoes were bioengineered specifically for these pigmentation traits.

Genetically engineered potatoes

Genetic research has produced several genetically modified varieties. 'New Leaf', owned by Monsanto Company, incorporates genes from Bacillus thuringiensis (source of most Bt toxins in transcrop use), which confers resistance to the Colorado potato beetle; 'New Leaf Plus' and 'New Leaf Y', approved by US regulatory agencies during the 1990s, also include resistance to viruses. McDonald's, Burger King, Frito-Lay, and Procter & Gamble announced they would not use genetically modified potatoes, and Monsanto published its intent to discontinue the line in March 2001.

Potato starch contains two types of glucan, amylose and amylopectin, the latter of which is most industrially useful. Waxy potato varieties produce waxy potato starch, which is almost entirely amylopectin, with little or no amylose. BASF developed the ' Amflora' potato, which was modified to express antisense RNA to inactivate the gene for granule bound starch synthase, an enzyme which catalyzes the formation of amylose. 'Amflora' potatoes therefore produce starch consisting almost entirely of amylopectin, and are thus more useful for the starch industry. In 2010, the European Commission cleared the way for 'Amflora' to be grown in the European Union for industrial purposes only-not for food. Nevertheless, under EU rules, individual countries have the right to decide whether they will allow this potato to be grown on their territory. Commercial planting of 'Amflora' was expected in the Czech Republic and Germany in the spring of 2010, and Sweden and the Netherlands in subsequent years. Another GM potato variety developed by BASF is 'Fortuna' which was made resistant to late blight by adding two resistance genes, and , which originate from the Mexican wild potato S. bulbocastanum.[clarification needed ] In October 2011 BASF requested cultivation and marketing approval as a feed and food from the EFSA. In 2012, GMO development in Europe was stopped by BASF. In November 2014, the USDA approved a genetically modified potato developed by J.R. Simplot Company, which contains genetic modifications that prevent bruising and produce less acrylamide when fried than conventional potatoes; the modifications do not cause new proteins to be made, but rather prevent proteins from being made via RNA interference.

Genetically modified varieties have met public resistance in the United States and in the European Union.

Biosynthesis of starch

Sucrose is a product of photosynthesis. Ferreira et al. (2010) found that the genes for starch biosynthesis start to be transcribed at the same time as sucrose synthase activity begins. This transcription - including starch synthase - also shows a diurnal rhythm, correlating with the sucrose supply arriving from the leaves.

Production of potatoes (2019)[58]

The potato was first domesticated in the region of modern-day southern Peru and northwestern Bolivia by pre-Columbian farmers, around Lake Titicaca. It has since spread around the world and become a staple crop in many countries.

The earliest archaeologically verified potato tuber remains have been found at the coastal site of Ancon (central Peru), dating to 2500 BC. The most widely cultivated variety, Solanum tuberosum tuberosum, is indigenous to the Chiloé Archipelago, and has been cultivated by the local indigenous people since before the Spanish conquest.

According to conservative estimates, the introduction of the potato was responsible for a quarter of the growth in Old World population and urbanization between 1700 and 1900. In the Altiplano, potatoes provided the principal energy source for the Inca civilization, its predecessors, and its Spanish successor. Following the Spanish conquest of the Inca Empire, the Spanish introduced the potato to Europe in the second half of the 16th century, part of the Columbian exchange. The staple was subsequently conveyed by European (possibly including Russian) mariners to territories and ports throughout the world, especially their colonies. The potato was slow to be adopted by European and colonial farmers, but after 1750 it became an important food staple and field crop and played a major role in the European 19th century population boom. However, lack of genetic diversity, due to the very limited number of varieties initially introduced, left the crop vulnerable to disease. In 1845, a plant disease known as late blight, caused by the fungus-like oomycete Phytophthora infestans, spread rapidly through the poorer communities of western Ireland as well as parts of the Scottish Highlands, resulting in the crop failures that led to the Great Irish Famine. Thousands of potato varieties still persist in the Andes, where over 100 cultivars might be found in a single valley, and a dozen or more might be maintained by a single agricultural household.

Production

In 2021, world production of potatoes was 376 million tonnes (370,000,000 long tons; 414,000,000 short tons), led by China with 25% of the total (table). Other major producers were India and Ukraine.

Boiled potato pulp with skin is 77% water, 20% carbohydrates, 2% protein, and contains negligible fat (table). In a reference amount of 100 grams (3.5 oz), boiled potato supplies 87 calories of food energy, and is a rich source of vitamin B6 (23% of the Daily Value, DV), with moderate contents (10-16% DV) of some B vitamins and vitamin C (table). Other micronutrients are below 10% of the DV.

The potato is rarely eaten raw because raw potato starch is poorly digested by humans.

Potatoes are often broadly classified as having a high glycemic index (GI) and so are often excluded from the diets of individuals trying to follow a low-GI diet. The GI of potatoes can vary considerably depending on the cultivar, growing conditions and storage, preparation methods (by cooking method, whether it is eaten hot or cold, whether it is mashed or cubed or consumed whole), and accompanying foods consumed (especially the addition of various high-fat or high-protein toppings). Consuming reheated or pre-cooked and cooled potatoes may yield a lower GI effect due to the formation of resistant starch.

In the UK, potatoes are not considered by the National Health Service (NHS) as counting or contributing towards the recommended daily five portions of fruit and vegetables, the 5-A-Day program.

Potatoes contain toxic compounds known as glycoalkaloids, of which the most prevalent are solanine and chaconine. Solanine is found in other plants in the same family, Solanaceae, which includes such plants as deadly nightshade (Atropa belladonna), henbane (Hyoscyamus niger) and tobacco ( spp.), as well as the food plants eggplant and tomato. These compounds, which protect the potato plant from its predators, are generally concentrated in its leaves, flowers, sprouts, and fruits (in contrast to the tubers). In a summary of several studies, the glycoalkaloid content was highest in the flowers and sprouts and lowest in the tuber flesh. (The glycoalkaloid content was, in order from highest to lowest: flowers, sprouts, leaves, tuber skin, roots, berries, peel [skin plus outer cortex of tuber flesh], stems, and tuber flesh).

Exposure to light, physical damage, and age increase glycoalkaloid content within the tuber. Cooking at high temperatures-over 170 °C (338 °F)-partly destroys these compounds. The concentration of glycoalkaloids in (a wild potato) is sufficient to produce toxic effects in humans. Glycoalkaloid poisoning may cause headaches, diarrhea, cramps, and, in severe cases, coma and death. However, poisoning from cultivated potato varieties is very rare. Light exposure causes greening from chlorophyll synthesis, giving a visual clue as to which areas of the tuber may have become more toxic. However, this does not provide a definitive guide, as greening and glycoalkaloid accumulation can occur independently of each other.

Different potato varieties contain different levels of glycoalkaloids. The ' Lenape' variety was released in 1967 but was withdrawn in 1970 as it contained high levels of glycoalkaloids. Since then, breeders developing new varieties test for this, and sometimes have to discard an otherwise promising cultivar. Breeders try to keep glycoalkaloid levels below 200 mg/kg (0.0032 oz/lb) (200 ppmw). However, when these commercial varieties turn green, they can still approach solanine concentrations of 1,000 mg/kg (0.016 oz/lb) (1000 ppmw). In normal potatoes, analysis has shown solanine levels may be as little as 3.5% of the breeders' maximum, with 7-187 mg/kg (0.00011-0.00299 oz/lb) being found. While a normal potato tuber has 12-20 mg/kg (0.00019-0.00032 oz/lb) of glycoalkaloid content, a green potato tuber contains 250-280 mg/kg (0.0040-0.0045 oz/lb) and its skin has 1,500-2,200 mg/kg (0.024-0.035 oz/lb).

Growth and cultivation

Seed potatoes

Potatoes are generally grown from "seed potatoes", tubers specifically grown to be free from disease and to provide consistent and healthy plants. To be disease free, the areas where seed potatoes are grown are selected with care. In the US, this restricts production of seed potatoes to only 15 states out of all 50 states where potatoes are grown. These locations are selected for their cold, hard winters that kill pests and summers with long sunshine hours for optimum growth. In the UK, most seed potatoes originate in Scotland, in areas where westerly winds reduce aphid attack and the spread of potato virus pathogens.

Specially genetically modified potatoes can also be grown from true seeds. This is rarely used in breeding experimentation.

Phases of growth

Potato growth can be divided into five phases. During the first phase, sprouts emerge from the seed potatoes and root growth begins. During the second, photosynthesis begins as the plant develops leaves and branches above-ground and stolons develop from lower leaf axils on the below-ground stem. In the third phase the tips of the stolons swell forming new tubers and the shoots continue to grow and flowers typically develop soon after. Tuber bulking occurs during the fourth phase, when the plant begins investing the majority of its resources in its newly formed tubers. At this phase, several factors are critical to a good yield: optimal soil moisture and temperature, soil nutrient availability and balance, and resistance to pest attacks. The fifth phase is the maturation of the tubers: the leaves and stems senesce and the tuber skins harden.

Challenges

Potatoes are renowned for their ease of cultivation compared to other staple crops; however, maximizing yields and preventing disease and undesirable characteristics requires intensive management.

New tubers may start growing at the surface of the soil. Since exposure to light leads to an undesirable greening of the skins and the development of solanine as a protection from the sun's rays, growers cover surface tubers. Commercial growers cover them by piling additional soil around the base of the plant as it grows (called "hilling" up, or in British English "earthing up"). An alternative method, used by home gardeners and smaller-scale growers, involves covering the growing area with mulches such as straw or plastic sheets.

Correct potato husbandry can be an arduous task in some circumstances. Good ground preparation, harrowing, plowing, and rolling are always needed, along with a little grace from the weather and a good source of water. Three successive plowings, with associated harrowing and rolling, are desirable before planting. Eliminating all root-weeds is desirable in potato cultivation. In general, the potatoes themselves are grown from the eyes of another potato and not from seed. Home gardeners often plant a piece of potato with two or three eyes in a hill of mounded soil. Commercial growers plant potatoes as a row crop using seed tubers, young plants or microtubers and may mound the entire row. Seed potato crops are rogued in some countries to eliminate diseased plants or those of a different variety from the seed crop.

Potatoes are sensitive to heavy frosts, which damage them in the ground. Even cold weather makes potatoes more susceptible to bruising and possibly later rotting, which can quickly ruin a large stored crop.

Pests and disease

The historically significant Phytophthora infestans (cause of late blight) remains an ongoing problem in Europe and the United States. Other potato diseases include Rhizoctonia, Sclerotinia, Pectobacterium carotovorum (black leg), powdery mildew, powdery scab and leafroll virus.

Insects that commonly transmit potato diseases or damage the plants include the Colorado potato beetle, the potato tuber moth, the green peach aphid (Myzus persicae), the potato aphid, Tuta absoluta, beet leafhoppers, thrips, and mites. The potato cyst nematode is a microscopic worm that feeds on the roots, thus causing the potato plants to wilt. Since its eggs can survive in the soil for several years, crop rotation is recommended. According to an Environmental Working Group analysis of USDA and FDA pesticide residue tests performed from 2000 through 2008, 84% of the 2,216 tested potato samples contained detectable traces of at least one pesticide. A total of 36 unique pesticides were detected on potatoes over the 2,216 samples, though no individual sample contained more than 6 unique pesticide traces, and the average was 1.29 detectable unique pesticide traces per sample. The average quantity of all pesticide traces found in the 2,216 samples was 1.602 ppm. While this was a very low value of pesticide residue, it was the highest amongst the 50 vegetables analyzed.

is a nucleotide-binding leucine-rich repeat (NB-LRR/NLR), an R-gene-produced immunoreceptor. It has been introgressed from wild relatives (various Solanum spp.) into the common potato. Rpi-blb1 conveys resistance to Late Blight ( P. infestans).[clarification needed ]

At harvest time, gardeners usually dig up potatoes with a long-handled, three-prong "grape" (or graip), i.e., a spading fork, or a potato hook, which is similar to the graip but with tines at a 90 ° angle to the handle. In larger plots, the plow is the fastest implement for unearthing potatoes. Commercial harvesting is typically done with large potato harvesters, which scoop up the plant and surrounding earth. This is transported up an apron chain consisting of steel links several feet wide, which separates some of the dirt. The chain deposits into an area where further separation occurs. Different designs use different systems at this point. The most complex designs use vine choppers and shakers, along with a blower system to separate the potatoes from the plant. The result is then usually run past workers who continue to sort out plant material, stones, and rotten potatoes before the potatoes are continuously delivered to a wagon or truck. Further inspection and separation occurs when the potatoes are unloaded from the field vehicles and put into storage.

Potatoes are usually cured after harvest to improve skin-set. Skin-set is the process by which the skin of the potato becomes resistant to skinning damage. Potato tubers may be susceptible to skinning at harvest and suffer skinning damage during harvest and handling operations. Curing allows the skin to fully set and any wounds to heal. Wound-healing prevents infection and water-loss from the tubers during storage. Curing is normally done at relatively warm temperatures (10 to 16 °C or 50 to 60 °F) with high humidity and good gas-exchange if at all possible.

Storage facilities need to be carefully designed to keep the potatoes alive and slow the natural process of sprouting which involves the breakdown of starch. It is crucial that the storage area be dark, ventilated well, and, for long-term storage, maintained at temperatures near 4 °C (39 °F). For short-term storage, temperatures of about 7 to 10 °C (45 to 50 °F) are preferred.

Temperatures below 4 °C (39 °F) convert the starch in potatoes into sugar, which alters their taste and cooking qualities and leads to higher acrylamide levels in the cooked product, especially in deep-fried dishes. The discovery of acrylamides in starchy foods in 2002 has led to international health concerns.[citation needed ] It is not likely that the acrylamides in burnt or well-cooked food causes cancer in humans. Chemicals are used to suppress sprouting of tubers during storage. Chlorpropham (CIPC) is the main chemical used, but toxicity concerns have led to it being banned in the EU. Alternatives are applying maleic hydrazide to the crop whilst it is still growing or the use of ethylene, spearmint and orange oils and 1,4-dimethylnaphthalene.

Under optimum conditions in commercial warehouses, potatoes can be stored for up to 10-12 months. The commercial storage and retrieval of potatoes involves several phases: first drying surface moisture; wound healing at 85% to 95% relative humidity and temperatures below 25 °C (77 °F); a staged cooling phase; a holding phase; and a reconditioning phase, during which the tubers are slowly warmed. Mechanical ventilation is used at various points during the process to prevent condensation and the accumulation of carbon dioxide.

The world dedicated 18.6 million hectares (46 million acres) to potato cultivation in 2010; the world average yield was 17.4 tonnes per hectare (7.8 short tons per acre). The United States was the most productive country, with a nationwide average yield of 44.3 tonnes per hectare (19.8 short tons per acre). United Kingdom was a close second.

New Zealand farmers have demonstrated some of the best commercial yields in the world, ranging between 60 and 80 tonnes per hectare, some reporting yields of 88 tonnes of potatoes per hectare.

There is a big gap among various countries between high and low yields, even with the same variety of potato. Average potato yields in developed economies ranges between 38 and 44 metric tons per hectare (15 and 18 long ton/acre; 17 and 20 short ton/acre). China and India accounted for over a third of world's production in 2010, and had yields of 14.7 and 19.9 metric tons per hectare (5.9 and 7.9 long ton/acre; 6.6 and 8.9 short ton/acre) respectively. The yield gap between farms in developing economies and developed economies represents an opportunity loss of over 400 million metric tons (440 million short tons; 390 million long tons) of potato, or an amount greater than 2010 world potato production. Potato crop yields are determined by factors such as the crop breed, seed age and quality, crop management practices and the plant environment. Improvements in one or more of these yield determinants, and a closure of the yield gap, can be a major boost to food supply and farmer incomes in the developing world. The food energy yield of potatoes-about 95 gigajoules per hectare (9.2 million kilocalories per acre)-is higher than that of maize (78 GJ/ha or 7.5 million kcal/acre), rice (77 GJ/ha or 7.4 million kcal/acre), wheat (31 GJ/ha or 3 million kcal/acre), or soybeans (29 GJ/ha or 2.8 million kcal/acre).

Climate change

Climate change is predicted to have significant effects on global potato production. Like many crops, potatoes are likely to be affected by changes in atmospheric carbon dioxide, temperature and precipitation, as well as interactions between these factors. As well as affecting potatoes directly, climate change will also affect the distributions and populations of many potato diseases and pests. While potato is less important than maize, rice, wheat and soybeans, which are collectively responsible for around two-thirds of all calories consumed by humans (both directly and indirectly as animal feed), it still is one of the world's most important food crops. According to a 2011 estimate, future worldwide potato yield would be 18-32% lower than it was at the time, driven by declines in hotter areas like Sub-Saharan Africa, unless farmers and potato cultivars can adapt to the new environment.

As with the other plants, potato plants and crop yields are predicted to benefit from the CO2 fertilization effect, which would increase photosynthetic rates and therefore growth, reduce water consumption through lower transpiration from stomata and increase starch content in the edible tubers. However, potatoes are more sensitive to soil water deficits than some other staple crops like wheat, so in countries like Bolivia, where the rainy season has shortened in recent decades, the potato growing season has shortened as well. This can get worse in the future: for instance, the amount of arable land suitable for rainfed potato production in the UK may decrease by at least 75%. These changes are likely to lead to increased demand for irrigation water, particularly during the potato growing season.

Potatoes also grow best under temperate conditions. Tuber growth and yield can be severely reduced by temperature fluctuations outside 5-30 °C (41-86 °F). Temperatures above 30 °C (86 °F) can have a range of negative effects on potato, from physiological damage such as brown spots on tubers, to slower growth, premature sprouting and lower starch content. These effects can reduce crop yield and the number and weight of tubers. As a result, areas where current temperatures are near the limits of potatoes' temperature range (e.g. much of sub-Saharan Africa) will likely suffer large reductions in potato crop yields in the future. On the other hand, low temperatures reduce potato growth and present risk of frost damage. At high altitudes and in high latitude countries such as Canada and Russia, potato growth is currently limited or impossible due to risks of frost damage, and rising temperatures will likely extend potentially suitable land and/or growing season.

Changes in pests and diseases for potato crops

Climate change is predicted to affect many potato pests and diseases. These include:

Insect pests such as the potato tuber moth and Colorado potato beetle, which are predicted to spread into areas currently too cold for them.

Aphids which act as vectors for many potato viruses and will also be able to spread under increased temperatures.

Several pathogens causing potato blackleg disease (e.g. Dickeya) can grow and reproduce faster at higher temperatures and so will likely become more of a problem.

Bacterial infections such as Ralstonia solanacearum are predicted to benefit from higher temperatures and be able to spread more easily through flash flooding.

Late blight benefits from higher temperatures and wetter conditions. Late blight is predicted to become a greater threat in some areas (e.g. in Finland) and become a lesser threat in others (e.g. in the United Kingdom).

Adaptation strategies

Shifting potato production from areas where yields will decline due to hotter temperatures and decreased water availability to places which will become suitable can help to mitigate much of the projected decline in yield: however, this can also trigger competition for land between potato crops and other crops or other land uses.), mostly due to changes in water and temperature regimes. At the same time potato production is predicted to become possible in high altitude and latitude areas where it would previously have been limited by frost damage. These changes in crop yields are predicted to cause shifts in the areas in which potato crops can be viably produced.

The other approach is through the development of varieties or cultivars which would be more adapted to altered conditions. This can be done through 'traditional' plant breeding techniques and genetic modification. These techniques allow for the selection of specific traits as a new cultivar is developed. Certain traits, such as heat stress tolerance, drought tolerance, fast growth/early maturation and disease resistance, may play an important role in creating new cultivars able to maintain yields under stressors induced by climate change.

For instance, developing cultivars with greater heat stress tolerance would be critical for maintaining yields in countries with potato production areas near current cultivars' maximum temperature limits (e.g. Sub-Saharan Africa, India). Superior drought resistance can be achieved through improved water use efficiency (amount of food produced per amount of water used) or the ability to recover from short drought periods and still produce acceptable yields. Further, selecting for deeper root systems may reduce the need for irrigation. Finally, potatoes that grow faster could help adjust to shorter growing seasons in some areas, and also reduce the number of life cycles pests such as potato tuber moth can complete in a single growing season.

Various, typically American potato preparations: (clockwise from top left) potato chips, hashbrowns, tater tots, mashed potato, and a baked potato

Potatoes are prepared in many ways: skin-on or peeled, whole or cut up, with seasonings or without. The only requirement involves cooking to swell the starch granules. Most potato dishes are served hot but some are first cooked, then served cold, notably potato salad and potato chips (crisps). Common dishes are: mashed potatoes, which are first boiled (usually peeled), and then mashed with milk or yogurt and butter; whole baked potatoes; boiled or steamed potatoes; French-fried potatoes or chips; cut into cubes and roasted; scalloped, diced, or sliced and fried ( home fries); grated into small thin strips and fried ( hash browns); grated and formed into dumplings, Rösti or potato pancakes. Potatoes can also be cooked in a microwave oven to produce a meal very similar to a steamed potato, while retaining the appearance of a conventionally baked potato.[citation needed ] Potato chunks also commonly appear as a stew ingredient. Potatoes are boiled between 10 and 25 minutes, depending on size and type, to become soft.

Latin America

Peruvian cuisine naturally contains the potato as a primary ingredient in many dishes, as around 3,000 varieties of this tuber are grown there. Some of the more notable dishes include boiled potato as a base for several dishes or with ají-based sauces like in papa a la Huancaína or ocopa, diced potato for its use in soups like in cau cau, or in carapulca with dried potato (papa seca). Smashed condimented potato is used in causa Limeña and papa rellena. French-fried potatoes are a typical ingredient in Peruvian stir-fries, including the classic dish lomo saltado.

Chuño is a freeze-dried potato product traditionally made by Quechua and Aymara communities of Peru and Bolivia, and is known in various countries of South America, including Peru, Bolivia, Argentina, and Chile. In Chile's Chiloé Archipelago, potatoes are the main ingredient of many dishes, including milcaos, chapaleles, curanto and chochoca. In Ecuador, the potato, as well as being a staple with most dishes, is featured in the hearty locro de papas, a thick soup of potato, squash, and cheese.

In the UK, potatoes form part of the traditional staple, fish and chips. Roast potatoes are commonly served as part of a Sunday roast dinner and mashed potatoes form a major component of several other traditional dishes, such as shepherd's pie, bubble and squeak, and bangers and mash. New potatoes may be cooked with mint and are often served with butter.

The tattie scone is a popular Scottish dish containing potatoes. Colcannon is a traditional Irish food made with mashed potato, shredded kale or cabbage, and onion; champ is a similar dish. Boxty pancakes are eaten throughout Ireland, although associated especially with the North, and in Irish diaspora communities; they are traditionally made with grated potatoes, soaked to loosen the starch and mixed with flour, buttermilk and baking powder. A variant eaten and sold in Lancashire, especially Liverpool, is made with cooked and mashed potatoes.

In the UK, game chips are a traditional accompaniment to roast gamebirds such as pheasant, grouse, partridge and quail.

Powdered cooked potato has been sold in the UK since the 1960s as Smash and is used as a food for camping and domestically.

Halushky are the national dish of many Slavic nations. Halušky dumplings are made from a batter consisting of flour and grated potatoes. Bryndzové halušky are associated to Slovak cuisine in particular.

German Bauernfrühstück ("farmer's breakfast")

In Germany, Northern (Finland, Latvia and especially Scandinavian countries), Eastern Europe (Russia, Belarus and Ukraine) and Poland, newly harvested, early ripening varieties are considered a special delicacy. Boiled whole and served un-peeled with dill, these "new potatoes" are traditionally consumed with Baltic herring. Puddings made from grated potatoes ( kugel, kugelis, and potato babka) are popular items of Ashkenazi, Lithuanian, and Belarusian cuisine. German fried potatoes and various versions of Potato salad are part of German cuisine. Bauernfrühstück (literally farmer's breakfast) is a warm German dish made from fried potatoes, eggs, ham and vegetables.

Cepelinai is the national dish of Lithuania. They are a type of dumpling made from grated raw potatoes boiled in water and usually stuffed with minced meat, although sometimes dry cottage cheese ( curd) or mushrooms are used instead.

In Western Europe, especially in Belgium, sliced potatoes are fried to create frieten, the original French fried potatoes. , a traditional Dutch meal, is based on mashed potatoes mixed with vegetables.

In France, the most notable potato dish is the hachis Parmentier, named after Antoine-Augustin Parmentier, a French pharmacist, nutritionist, and agronomist who, in the late 18th century, was instrumental in the acceptance of the potato as an edible crop in the country. Pâté aux pommes de terre is a regional potato dish from the central Allier and Limousin regions. Gratin dauphinois, consisting of baked thinly sliced potatoes with cream or milk, and tartiflette, with Reblochon cheese, are also widespread.

In the north of Italy, in particular, in the Friuli region of the northeast, potatoes serve to make a type of pasta called gnocchi. Similarly, cooked and mashed potatoes or potato flour can be used in the Knödel or dumpling eaten with or added to meat dishes all over central and Eastern Europe, but especially in Bavaria and Luxembourg. Potatoes form one of the main ingredients in many soups such as the vichyssoise and Albanian potato and cabbage soup. In western Norway, komle is popular.

Potato pancakes are popular all over Central Europe, and are also known in Scandinavia, and in Jewish cuisine.

A traditional Canary Islands dish is Canarian wrinkly potatoes or papas arrugadas. Tortilla de patatas (potato omelette) and patatas bravas (a dish of fried potatoes in a spicy tomato sauce) are near-universal constituents of Spanish tapas.

North America

In the US, potatoes have become one of the most widely consumed crops and thus have a variety of preparation methods and condiments. French fries and often hash browns are commonly found in typical American fast-food burger "joints" and cafeterias. One popular favourite involves a baked potato with cheddar cheese (or sour cream and chives) on top, and in New England "smashed potatoes" (a chunkier variation on mashed potatoes, retaining the peel) have a great popularity. Potato flakes are popular as an instant variety of mashed potatoes, which reconstitute into mashed potatoes by adding water, with butter or oil and salt to taste. A regional dish of Central New York, salt potatoes are bite-size new potatoes boiled in water saturated with salt then served with melted butter. At more formal dinners, a common practice includes taking small red potatoes, slicing them, and roasting them in an iron skillet. Among American Jews, the practice of eating latkes (fried potato pancakes) is common during the festival of Hanukkah.

A traditional Acadian dish from New Brunswick is known as poutine râpée. The Acadian poutine is a ball of grated and mashed potato, salted, sometimes filled with pork in the centre, and boiled. The result is a moist ball about the size of a baseball. It is commonly eaten with salt and pepper or brown sugar. It is believed to have originated from the German , prepared by early German settlers who lived among the Acadians. , by contrast, is a hearty serving of French fries, fresh cheese curds and hot gravy. Tracing its origins to Quebec in the 1950s, it has become a widespread and popular dish throughout Canada.

Potato grading for Idaho potatoes is performed in which No. 1 potatoes are the highest quality and No. 2 are rated as lower in quality due to their appearance (e.g. blemishes or bruises, pointy ends). Potato density assessment can be performed by floating them in brines. High-density potatoes are desirable in the production of dehydrated mashed potatoes, potato crisps and french fries.

French fries served with a hamburger

Poutine, a Canadian dish of fried potatoes, cheese curds, and gravy

In South Asia, the potato is a very popular traditional staple. In India, the most popular potato dishes are aloo ki sabzi, batata vada, and samosa, which is spicy mashed potato mixed with a small amount of vegetable stuffed in conical dough, and deep-fried. Potatoes are also a major ingredient as fast-food items, such as aloo chaat, where they are deep-fried and served with chutney. In Northern India, alu dum and alu paratha are a favourite part of the diet; the first is a spicy curry of boiled potato, the second is a type of stuffed chapati.

A dish called masala dosa from South India is notable all over India. It is a thin pancake of rice and pulse batter rolled over spicy smashed potato and eaten with sambhar and chutney. Poori in south India, in particular in Tamil Nadu, is almost always taken with smashed potato masal. Other favourite dishes are alu tikki and pakoda items.

Vada pav is a popular vegetarian fast-food dish in Mumbai and other regions in Maharashtra in India.

Aloo posto (a curry with potatoes and poppy seeds) is popular in East India, especially Bengal. Although potatoes are not native to India, it has become a vital part of food all over the country especially North Indian food preparations. In Tamil Nadu this tuber acquired a name based on its appearance, 'urulai-k-kizhangu' (உருளைக் கிழங்கு), meaning cylindrical tuber.

Aloo gosht, potato and meat curry, is one of the popular dishes in South Asia, especially in Pakistan.

In East Asia, particularly Southeast Asia, rice is by far the predominant starch crop, with potatoes a secondary crop, especially in China and Japan. However, it is used in northern China where rice is not easily grown, with a popular dish being ( qīng jiāo tǔ dòu sī), made with green pepper, vinegar and thin slices of potato. In the winter, roadside sellers in northern China will also sell roasted potatoes. It is also occasionally seen in Korean and Thai cuisines.

Potatoes are also used for purposes other than eating by humans, for example:

Potatoes are used to brew alcoholic beverages such as vodka, poitín, or akvavit.

They are also used as fodder for livestock. Livestock-grade potatoes, considered too small or blemished to sell or market for human use but suitable for fodder use, have been called chats in some dialects. They may be stored in bins until use; they are sometimes ensiled. Some farmers prefer to steam them rather than feed them raw and are equipped to do so efficiently.

Potato starch is used in the food industry as a thickener and binder for soups and sauces, in the textile industry as an adhesive, and for the manufacturing of papers and boards.

Potatoes are commonly used in plant research. The consistent parenchyma tissue, the clonal nature of the plant and the low metabolic activity make it an ideal model tissue for experiments on wound-response studies and electron transport.

Potatoes have been delivered with personalized messages as a novelty. Potato delivery services include Potato Parcel and Mail A Spud.

Cultural significance

The potato has been an essential crop in the Andes since the pre-Columbian era. The Moche culture from Northern Peru made ceramics from the earth, water, and fire. This pottery was a sacred substance, formed in significant shapes and used to represent important themes. Potatoes are represented anthropomorphically as well as naturally.

During the late 19th century, numerous images of potato harvesting appeared in European art, including the works of Willem Witsen and Anton Mauve.

Van Gogh's 1885 painting The Potato Eaters portrays a family eating potatoes. Van Gogh said he wanted to depict peasants as they really were. He deliberately chose coarse and ugly models, thinking that they would be natural and unspoiled in his finished work.

Jean-François Millet's The Potato Harvest depicts peasants working in the plains between Barbizon and Chailly. It presents a theme representative of the peasants' struggle for survival. Millet's technique for this work incorporated paste-like pigments thickly applied over a coarsely textured canvas.

In popular culture

Invented in 1949, and marketed and sold commercially by Hasbro in 1952, Mr. Potato Head is an American toy that consists of a plastic potato and attachable plastic parts, such as ears and eyes, to make a face. It was the first toy ever advertised on television.

In June 1992 at the Muñoz Rivera Elementary School spelling bee in Trenton, New Jersey, U.S. Vice President Dan Quayle was handed a flash card that incorrectly spelled "potato" as "potatoe" and then prompted a 12-year-old student to change his correct spelling. This incident was the subject of widespread ridicule.

References

General and cited sources

Economist. "Llamas and mash", The Economist 28 February 2008 online

Economist. "The potato: Spud we like", (leader) The Economist 28 February 2008 online

Boomgaard, Peter (2003). "In the Shadow of Rice: Roots and Tubers in Indonesian History, 1500-1950". Agricultural History. 77 (4): 582-610. doi:10.1525/ah.2003.77.4.582. JSTOR 3744936.

Hawkes, J.G. (1990). The Potato: Evolution, Biodiversity & Genetic Resources, Smithsonian Institution Press, Washington, DC

Lang, James (1975). Notes of a Potato Watcher. Texas A&M University Agriculture series. ISBN 978-1-58544-138-9.

Langer, William L (1975). "American Foods and Europe's Population Growth 1750-1850". Journal of Social History. 8 (2): 51-66. doi:10.1353/jsh/8.2.51. JSTOR 3786266.

McNeill, William H. "How the Potato Changed the World's History." Social Research (1999) 66#1 pp. 67-83. ISSN 0037-783X Fulltext: Ebsco, by a leading historian

McNeill William H (1948). "The Introduction of the Potato into Ireland". Journal of Modern History. 21 (3): 218-21. doi:10.1086/237272. JSTOR 1876068. S2CID 145099646.

Ó Gráda, Cormac. Black '47 and Beyond: The Great Irish Famine in History, Economy, and Memory. (1999). 272 pp.

Ó Gráda, Cormac, Richard Paping, and Eric Vanhaute, eds. When the Potato Failed: Causes and Effects of the Last European Subsistence Crisis, 1845-1850. (2007). 342 pp. ISBN 978-2-503-51985-2. 15 essays by scholars looking at Ireland and all of Europe

Reader, John. Propitious Esculent: The Potato in World History (2008), 315pp a standard scholarly history

Salaman, Redcliffe N. (1989). The History and Social Influence of the Potato, Cambridge University Press (originally published in 1949; reprinted 1985 with new introduction and corrections by J.G. Hawkes).

Stevenson, W.R., Loria, R., Franc, G.D., and Weingartner, D.P. (2001) Compendium of Potato Diseases, 2nd ed, Amer. Phytopathological Society, St. Paul, MN.

Zuckerman, Larry. The Potato: How the Humble Spud Rescued the Western World. (1998). 304 pp. Douglas & McIntyre. ISBN 0-86547-578-4.

Further reading

Bohl, William H.; Johnson, Steven B., eds. (2010). Commercial Potato Production in North America: The Potato Association of America Handbook (PDF). Second Revision of American Potato Journal Supplement Volume 57 and USDA Handbook 267. The Potato Association of America. Archived from the original (PDF) on 16 August 2012.

"'Humble' Potato Emerging as World's Next Food Source". column. Japan. Reuters. 11 May 2008. p. 20.

Spooner, David M.; McLean, Karen; Ramsay, Gavin; Waugh, Robbie; Bryan, Glenn J. (October 2005). "A single domestication for potato based on multilocus amplified fragment length polymorphism genotyping". Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America. National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America. 102 (41): 14694-14699. Bibcode:2005PNAS..10214694S. doi:10.1073/pnas.0507400102. PMC . PMID 16203994.

The World Potato Atlas, released by the International Potato Center in 2006 and regularly updated. Includes current chapters of 15 countries:

South America: (English and Spanish): Bolivia, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru

Africa: Cameroon, Ethiopia, Kenya

Eurasia: Armenia, Bangladesh, China, India, Myanmar, Nepal, Pakistan, Tajikistan

38 others as brief "archive" chapters

Further information links at Other Materials

World Geography of the Potato at UGA.edu, released in 1993.

Atlas of Wild Potatoes (2002), Systematic and Ecogeographic Studies on Crop Genepools 10, International Plant Genetic Resources Institute (IPGRI), ISBN 9789290435181

Gauldie, Enid (1981). The Scottish Miller 1700-1900. Pub. John Donald. ISBN 0-85976-067-7.

External links

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The potato is a starchy food, a tuber of the plant Solanum tuberosum and is a root vegetable native to the Americas. The plant is a perennial in the nightshade family Solanaceae. Wild potato species can be found from the southern United States to southern Chile.

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Black pepper (piper nigrum) is native to present day Kerala in Southwestern India and is extensively cultivated there and elsewhere in tropical regions. Vietnam is the world's largest producer and exporter of pepper, producing 34% of the world's P. nigrum crop

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Piper nigrum ( Piper nigrum) is a flowering vine in the family Piperaceae, cultivated for its fruit, which is usually dried and used as a spice and seasoning, known as a peppercorn. When fresh and fully mature, it is about 5 mm (0.20 in) in diameter and dark red, and contains a single seed, like all drupes.

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Wheat is a grass widely cultivated for its seed, a cereal grain that is a worldwide staple food. The many species of wheat together make up the genus Triticum; the most widely grown is common wheat ( T. aestivum). The archaeological record suggests that wheat was first cultivated in the regions of the Fertile Crescent around 9600 BCE. Botanically, the wheat kernel is a type of fruit called a caryopsis.

Wheat is grown on more land area than any other food crop (220.4 million hectares or 545 million acres, 2014). World trade in wheat is greater than for all other crops combined.

In 2020, world production of wheat was 761 million tonnes (839 million short tons; 1.7 trillion pounds), making it the second most-produced cereal after maize. Since 1960, world production of wheat and other grain crops has tripled and is expected to grow further through the middle of the 21st century. Global demand for wheat is increasing due to the unique viscoelastic and adhesive properties of gluten proteins, which facilitate the production of processed foods, whose consumption is increasing as a result of the worldwide industrialization process and the westernization of the diet.

Wheat is an important source of carbohydrates. Globally, it is the leading source of vegetable proteins in human food, having a protein content of about 13%, which is relatively high compared to other major cereals but relatively low in protein quality for supplying essential amino acids. When eaten as the whole grain, wheat is a source of multiple nutrients and dietary fiber.

In a small part of the general population, gluten - the major part of wheat protein - can trigger coeliac disease, noncoeliac gluten sensitivity, gluten ataxia, and dermatitis herpetiformis.

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 (inside the spikelets) remain attached to the ear by a toughened rachis during harvesting. In wild strains, a more fragile rachis allows the ear to easily shatter and disperse the spikelets. Selection for larger grains and non-shattering heads 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.

Archaeological analysis of wild emmer indicates that it was first cultivated in the southern Levant, with finds dating back as far as 9600 BC. Genetic analysis of wild wheat suggests that it was first grown in the Karacadaǧ Mountains in southeastern Turkey. 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 Karacadag Mountain Range. With the anomalous exception of two grains from Iraq ed-Dubb, the earliest carbon-14 date 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 BC. They also concluded that the settlers of Tell Aswad did not develop this form of emmer themselves, but brought the domesticated grains with them from an as yet unidentified location elsewhere.

The cultivation of emmer reached Greece, Cyprus and Indian subcontinent by 6500 BC, Egypt shortly after 6000 BC, and Germany and Spain by 5000 BC. "The early Egyptians were developers of bread and the use of the oven and developed baking into one of the first large-scale food production industries." By 4000 BC, wheat had reached the British Isles and Scandinavia. Wheat likely appeared in China's lower Yellow River around 2600 Before Common Era (BC).

The oldest evidence for hexaploid wheat has been confirmed through DNA analysis of wheat seeds, dating to around 6400-6200 BC, recovered from Çatalhöyük. The first identifiable bread wheat ( Triticum aestivum) with sufficient gluten for yeasted breads has been identified using DNA analysis in samples from a granary dating to approximately 1350 BC at Assiros in Macedonia.

From Asia, wheat continued to spread across Europe and to the Americas in the Columbian exchange. In the British Isles, wheat straw (thatch) was used for roofing in the Bronze Age, and was in common use until the late 19th century.

White wheat bread was historically a high status food, but during the nineteenth century it became in Britain an item of mass consumption, displacing oats, barley and rye from diets in the North of the country. It became "a sign of a high degree of culture". After 1860, the enormous expansion of wheat production in the United States flooded the world market, lowering prices by 40%, and (along with the expansion of potato growing) made a major contribution to the nutritional welfare of the poor.

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. When the use of seed drills replaced broadcasting sowing of seed in the 18th century, another great increase in productivity occurred.

Yields of pure 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, reaper-binder machines (the ' combine harvester'), tractor-drawn cultivators and planters, and better varieties (see Green Revolution and Norin 10 wheat). Great expansion of wheat production occurred as new arable land was farmed in the Americas and Australia in the 19th and 20th centuries.

Leaves emerge from the shoot apical meristem in a telescoping fashion until the transition to reproduction i.e. flowering. The last leaf produced by a wheat plant is known as the flag leaf. It is denser and has a higher photosynthetic rate than other leaves, to supply carbohydrate to the developing ear. In temperate countries the flag leaf, along with the second and third highest leaf on the plant, supply the majority of carbohydrate in the grain and their condition is paramount to yield formation. Wheat is unusual among plants in having more stomata on the upper (adaxial) side of the leaf, than on the under (abaxial) side. It has been theorised that this might be an effect of it having been domesticated and cultivated longer than any other plant. Winter wheat generally produces up to 15 leaves per shoot and spring wheat up to 9 and winter crops may have up to 35 tillers (shoots) per plant (depending on cultivar).

Wheat roots are among the deepest of arable crops, extending as far down as 2 metres (6 ft 7 in). While the roots of a wheat plant are growing, the plant also accumulates an energy store in its stem, in the form of fructans, which helps the plant to yield under drought and disease pressure, but it has been observed that there is a trade-off between root growth and stem non-structural carbohydrate reserves. Root growth is likely to be prioritised in drought-adapted crops, while stem non-structural carbohydrate is prioritised in varieties developed for countries where disease is a bigger issue.

Depending on variety, wheat may be awned or not awned. Producing awns incurs a cost in grain number, but wheat awns photosynthesise more efficiently than their leaves with regards to water usage, so awns are much more frequent in varieties of wheat grown in hot drought-prone countries than those generally seen in temperate countries. For this reason, awned varieties could become more widely grown due to climate change. In Europe, however, a decline in climate resilience of wheat has been observed.

In traditional agricultural systems wheat populations often consist of landraces, informal farmer-maintained populations that often maintain high levels of morphological diversity. Although landraces of wheat are no longer grown in Europe and North America, they continue to be important elsewhere. The origins of formal wheat breeding lie in the nineteenth century, when single line varieties were created through selection of seed from a single plant noted to have desired properties. Modern wheat breeding developed in the first years of the twentieth century and was closely linked to the development of Mendelian genetics. The standard method of breeding inbred wheat cultivars is by crossing two lines using hand emasculation, then selfing or inbreeding the progeny. Selections are identified (shown to have the genes responsible for the varietal differences) ten or more generations before release as a variety or cultivar.

Major breeding objectives include high grain yield, good quality, disease and insect resistance and tolerance to abiotic stresses, including mineral, moisture and heat tolerance. The major diseases in temperate environments include the following, arranged in a rough order of their significance from cooler to warmer climates: eyespot, Stagonospora nodorum blotch (also known as glume blotch), yellow or stripe rust, powdery mildew, Septoria tritici blotch (sometimes known as leaf blotch), brown or leaf rust, Fusarium head blight, tan spot and stem rust. In tropical areas, spot blotch (also known as Helminthosporium leaf blight) is also important.

Wheat has also been the subject of mutation breeding, with the use of gamma, x-rays, ultraviolet light, and sometimes harsh chemicals. The varieties of wheat created through these methods are in the hundreds (going as far back as 1960), more of them being created in higher populated countries such as China. Bread wheat with high grain iron and zinc content has been developed through gamma radiation breeding, and through conventional selection breeding.

International wheat breeding is led by CIMMYT in Mexico. ICARDA is another major public sector international wheat breeder, but it was forced to relocate from Syria in the Syrian Civil War.

The presence of certain versions of wheat genes has been important for crop yields. Genes for the 'dwarfing' trait, first used by Japanese wheat breeders to produce short-stalked wheat, have had a huge effect on wheat yields worldwide, and were major factors in the success of the Green Revolution in Mexico and Asia, an initiative led by Norman Borlaug. Dwarfing genes enable the carbon that is fixed in the plant during photosynthesis to be diverted towards seed production, and they also help prevent the problem of lodging. "Lodging" occurs when an ear stalk falls over in the wind and rots on the ground, and heavy nitrogenous fertilization of wheat makes the grass grow taller and become more susceptible to this problem. By 1997, 81% of the developing world's wheat area was planted to semi-dwarf wheats, giving both increased yields and better response to nitrogenous fertilizer.[citation needed ]

T. turgidum subsp. polonicum is known for its longer glumes and grains, has been bred into main wheat lines for its grain size effect, and likely has contributed these traits to T. petropavlovskyi and the Portuguese landrace group " Arrancada".

As with many plants, MADS-box influences flower development, and more specifically, as with other agricultural Poaceae, heavily influences the total weight output at the end of the entire grain growing process. Despite that importance, as of 2021 little research has been done into MADS-box and other such spikelet and flower genetics in wheat specifically.

The world record wheat yield is about 17 tonnes per hectare (15,000 pounds per acre), reached in New Zealand in 2017. A project in the UK, led by Rothamsted Research has aimed to raise wheat yields in the country to 20 t/ha (18,000 lb/acre) by 2020, but in 2018 the UK record stood at 16 t/ha (14,000 lb/acre), and the average yield was just 8 t/ha (7,100 lb/acre).

Wild grasses in the genus Triticum and related genera, and grasses such as rye have been a source of many disease-resistance traits for cultivated wheat breeding since the 1930s. Some resistance genes have been identified against Pyrenophora tritici-repentis, especially races 1 and 5, those most problematic in Kazakhstan. Wild relative, Aegilops tauschii is the source of several genes effective against TTKSK/Ug99 - , , , and - of which Sr33 and SrTA1662 are the work of Olson et al. 2013, and Sr45 and Sr46 are also briefly reviewed therein.

Resistance to Fusarium head blight (FHB, Fusarium ear blight) is also an important breeding target. Marker-assisted breeding panels involving kompetitive allele specific PCR can be used. Singh et al. 2019 identify a KASP genetic marker for a pore-forming toxin-like gene providing FHB resistance.

Because wheat self-pollinates, creating hybrid seed is extremely labor-intensive; the high cost of hybrid wheat seed relative to its moderate benefits have kept farmers from adopting them widely despite nearly 90 years of effort.

F1 hybrid wheat cultivars should not be confused with wheat cultivars deriving from standard plant breeding, which may descend from hybrid crosses further back in its ancestry. Heterosis or hybrid vigor (as in the familiar F1 hybrids of maize) occurs in common (hexaploid) wheat, but it is difficult to produce seed of hybrid cultivars on a commercial scale as is done with maize because wheat flowers are perfect in the botanical sense, meaning they have both male and female parts, and normally self-pollinate. Commercial hybrid wheat seed has been produced using chemical hybridizing agents, plant growth regulators that selectively interfere with pollen development, or naturally occurring cytoplasmic male sterility systems. Hybrid wheat has been a limited commercial success in Europe (particularly France), the United States and South Africa.

Synthetic hexaploids made by crossing the wild goatgrass wheat ancestor Aegilops tauschii, and various other , and various durum wheats are now being deployed, and these increase the genetic diversity of cultivated wheats.

In ancient times, wheat was often considered a luxury grain because it had lower yield but better taste and digestibility than competitors like rye. In the 19th century, efforts were made to hybridize the two to get a crop with the best traits of both. This produced triticale, a grain with high potential, but fraught with problems relating to fertility and germination. These have mostly been solved, so that in the 20th century millions of acres of triticale are being grown worldwide.

Modern bread wheat varieties have been cross-bred to contain greater amounts of gluten, which affords significant advantages for improving the quality of breads and pastas from a functional point of view. However, a 2020 study that grew and analyzed 60 wheat cultivars from between 1891 and 2010 found no changes in albumin/globulin and gluten contents over time. "Overall, the harvest year had a more significant effect on protein composition than the cultivar. At the protein level, we found no evidence to support an increased immunostimulatory potential of modern winter wheat."

Stomata (or leaf pores) are involved in both uptake of carbon dioxide gas from the atmosphere and water vapor losses from the leaf due to water transpiration. Basic physiological investigation of these gas exchange processes has yielded valuable carbon isotope based methods that are used for breeding wheat varieties with improved water-use efficiency. These varieties can improve crop productivity in rain-fed dry-land wheat farms.

In 2010, a team of UK scientists funded by BBSRC announced they had decoded the wheat genome for the first time (95% of the genome of a variety of wheat known as Chinese Spring line 42). This genome was released in a basic format for scientists and plant breeders to use but was not a fully annotated sequence which was reported in some of the media. On 29 November 2012, an essentially complete gene set of bread wheat was published. Random shotgun libraries of total DNA and cDNA from the T. aestivum cv. Chinese Spring (CS42) were sequenced in Roche 454 pyrosequencer using GS FLX Titanium and GS FLX+ platforms to generate 85 Gb of sequence (220 million reads) and identified between 94,000 and 96,000 genes. The implications of the research in cereal genetics and breeding includes the examination of genome variation, analysis of population genetics and evolutionary biology, and further studying epigenetic modifications. In 2018 an even more complete Chinese Spring genome was released by a different team.

Then in 2020 some of the same researchers produced 15 genome sequences from various locations and varieties around the world - the most complete and detailed so far - along with examples of their own use of the sequences to localize particular insect and disease resistance factors. The team expects these sequences will be useful in future cultivar breeding.

CRISPR/Cas9

For decades the primary genetic modification technique has been non-homologous end joining (NHEJ). However, since its introduction, the tool has been extensively adopted, for example:

As of 2021 these examples illustrate the rapid deployment and results that CRISPR/Cas9 has shown in wheat disease resistance improvement.

There are around 20 wheat varieties of 7 species grown throughout the world. In Canada different varieties are blended prior to sale. "Identity preserved" wheat that has been stored and transported separately (at extra cost) usually fetches a higher price.

Apart from mutant versions of genes selected in antiquity during domestication, there has been more recent deliberate selection of alleles that affect growth characteristics. Some wheat species are diploid, with two sets of chromosomes, but many are stable polyploids, with four sets of chromosomes ( tetraploid) or six ( hexaploid).

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, and a wild goatgrass such as Aegilops searsii or Ae. speltoides. The unknown grass has never been identified among non-extinct wild grasses, but the closest living relative is Aegilops speltoides. 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.

At the point of the end user - the farmer who is sowing and reaping - the exact variety they have in their field is usually not known. The development of genetic assays which can distinguish the small differences between cultivars is allowing that question to be answered field-by-field, for the first time.

Hexaploid species

Common wheat or bread wheat (T. aestivum) - A hexaploid species that is the most widely cultivated in the world.

(T. spelta) - Another hexaploid species cultivated in limited quantities.[quantify ] Spelt is sometimes considered a subspecies[by whom? ] of the closely related species common wheat (T. aestivum), in which case its botanical name is considered to be T. aestivum ssp. spelta.

Tetraploid species

(T. durum) - A tetraploid form of wheat widely used today, and the second most widely cultivated wheat.

(T. dicoccum) - A tetraploid species, cultivated in ancient times but no longer in widespread use.

(T. turgidum ssp. turanicum, also called T. turanicum) is a tetraploid wheat species. It is an ancient grain type; Khorasan refers to a historical region in modern-day Afghanistan and the northeast of Iran. This grain is twice the size of modern-day wheat and is known for its rich nutty flavor.

Diploid species

(T. monococcum) - A diploid species with wild and cultivated variants. Domesticated at the same time as emmer wheat.

The four wild species of wheat, along with the domesticated varieties einkorn, emmer and spelt, have hulls. This more primitive morphology (in evolutionary terms) consists of toughened glumes that tightly enclose the grains, and (in domesticated wheats) a semi-brittle rachis that breaks easily on threshing.

The result is that when threshed, the wheat ear breaks up into spikelets. To obtain the grain, further processing, such as milling or pounding, is needed to remove the hulls or husks. Hulled wheats are often stored as spikelets because the toughened glumes give good protection against pests of stored grain.

In free-threshing (or naked) forms, such as durum wheat and common wheat, the glumes are fragile and the rachis tough. On threshing, the chaff breaks up, releasing the grains.[citation needed ]

There are many botanical classification systems used for wheat species, discussed in a separate article on wheat taxonomy. The name of a wheat species from one information source may not be the name of a wheat species in another.

Within a species, wheat cultivars are further classified by wheat breeders and farmers in terms of:

Growing season, such as winter wheat vs. spring wheat.

Protein content. Bread wheat protein content ranges from 10% in some soft wheats with high starch contents, to 15% in hard wheats.

The quality of the wheat protein gluten. This protein can determine the suitability of a wheat to a particular dish. A strong and elastic gluten present in bread wheats enables dough to trap carbon dioxide during leavening, but elastic gluten interferes with the rolling of pasta into thin sheets. The gluten protein in durum wheats used for pasta is strong but not elastic.

Grain color (red, white or amber). Many wheat varieties are reddish-brown due to phenolic compounds present in the bran layer which are transformed to pigments by browning enzymes. White wheats have a lower content of phenolics and browning enzymes, and are generally less astringent in taste than red wheats. The yellowish color of durum wheat and semolina flour made from it is due to a carotenoid pigment called lutein, which can be oxidized to a colorless form by enzymes present in the grain.

The named classes of wheat in English are more or less the same in Canada as in the US, as broadly the same commercial cash crop strains can be found in both.

- Very hard, translucent, light-colored grain used to make semolina flour for pasta and bulghur; high in protein, specifically, gluten protein.

Hard Red Spring - Hard, brownish, high-protein wheat used for bread and hard baked goods. Bread flour and high-gluten flours are commonly made from hard red spring wheat. It is primarily traded on the Minneapolis Grain Exchange.

Hard Red Winter - Hard, brownish, mellow high-protein wheat used for bread, hard baked goods and as an adjunct in other flours to increase protein in pastry flour for pie crusts. Some brands of unbleached all-purpose flours are commonly made from hard red winter wheat alone. It is primarily traded on the Kansas City Board of Trade. Many varieties grown from Kansas south are descendant from a variety known as "turkey red", which was brought to Kansas by Mennonite immigrants from Russia. Marquis wheat was developed to prosper in the shorter growing season in Canada, and is grown as far south as southern Nebraska.

Soft Red Winter - Soft, low-protein wheat used for cakes, pie crusts, biscuits, and muffins. Cake flour, pastry flour, and some self-rising flours with baking powder and salt added, for example, are made from soft red winter wheat. It is primarily traded on the Chicago Board of Trade.

Hard White - Hard, light-colored, opaque, chalky, medium-protein wheat planted in dry, temperate areas. Used for bread and brewing.

Soft White - Soft, light-colored, very low protein wheat grown in temperate moist areas. Used for pie crusts and pastry. Pastry flour, for example, is sometimes made from soft white winter wheat.

Red wheats may need bleaching; therefore, white wheats usually command higher prices than red wheats on the commodities market.

Raw wheat can be ground into flour or, using hard durum wheat only, can be ground into semolina; germinated and dried creating malt; crushed or cut into cracked wheat; parboiled (or steamed), dried, crushed and de-branned into bulgur also known as groats. If the raw wheat is broken into parts at the mill, as is usually done, the outer husk or bran can be used in several ways.

In manufacturing wheat products, gluten is valuable to impart viscoelastic functional qualities in dough, enabling the preparation of diverse processed foods such as breads, noodles, and pasta that facilitate wheat consumption.

In 100 grams, wheat provides 1,368 kilojoules (327 kilocalories) of food energy and is a rich source (20% or more of the Daily Value, DV) of multiple essential nutrients, such as protein, dietary fiber, manganese, phosphorus and niacin (table). Several B vitamins and other dietary minerals are in significant content. Wheat is 13% water, 71% carbohydrates, and 1.5% fat. Its 13% protein content is mostly gluten (75-80% of the protein in wheat).

Wheat proteins have a low quality for human nutrition, according to the new protein quality method ( DIAAS) promoted by the Food and Agriculture Organization. Though they contain adequate amounts of the other essential amino acids, at least for adults, wheat proteins are deficient in the essential amino acid, lysine. Because the proteins present in the wheat endosperm (gluten proteins) are particularly poor in lysine, white flours are more deficient in lysine compared with whole grains. Significant efforts in plant breeding are being made to develop lysine-rich wheat varieties, without success as of 2017. Supplementation with proteins from other food sources (mainly legumes) is commonly used to compensate for this deficiency, since the limitation of a single essential amino acid causes the others to break down and become excreted, which is especially important during the period of growth.

100 g ( oz) of hard red winter wheat contain about 12.6 g of protein, 1.5 g of total fat, 71 g of carbohydrate (by difference), 12.2 g of dietary fiber, and 3.2 mg of iron (17% of the daily requirement); the same weight of hard red spring wheat contains about 15.4 g of protein, 1.9 g of total fat, 68 g of carbohydrate (by difference), 12.2 g of dietary fiber, and 3.6 mg of iron (20% of the daily requirement).

Wheat is grown on more than 218,000,000 hectares (540,000,000 acres).

The most common forms of wheat are white and red wheat. However, other natural forms of wheat exist. Other commercially minor but nutritionally promising species of naturally evolved wheat species include black, yellow and blue wheat.

Consumed worldwide by billions of people, wheat is a significant food for human nutrition, particularly in the least developed countries where wheat products are primary foods. When eaten as the whole grain, wheat is a healthy food source of multiple nutrients and dietary fiber recommended for children and adults, in several daily servings containing a variety of foods that meet whole grain-rich criteria. Dietary fiber may also help people feel full and therefore help with a healthy weight. Further, wheat is a major source for natural and biofortified nutrient supplementation, including dietary fiber, protein and dietary minerals.

Manufacturers of foods containing wheat as a whole grain in specified amounts are allowed a health claim for marketing purposes in the United States, stating: "low fat diets rich in fiber-containing grain products, fruits, and vegetables may reduce the risk of some types of cancer, a disease associated with many factors" and "diets low in saturated fat and cholesterol and rich in fruits, vegetables, and grain products that contain some types of dietary fiber, particularly soluble fiber, may reduce the risk of heart disease, a disease associated with many factors". The scientific opinion of the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) related to health claims on gut health/bowel function, weight control, blood glucose/insulin levels, weight management, blood cholesterol, satiety, glycaemic index, digestive function and cardiovascular health is "that the food constituent, whole grain, (...) is not sufficiently characterised in relation to the claimed health effects" and "that a cause and effect relationship cannot be established between the consumption of whole grain and the claimed effects considered in this opinion."

In genetically susceptible people, gluten - a major part of wheat protein - can trigger coeliac disease. Coeliac disease affects about 1% of the general population in developed countries. There is evidence that most cases remain undiagnosed and untreated. The only known effective treatment is a strict lifelong gluten-free diet.

While coeliac disease is caused by a reaction to wheat proteins, it is not the same as a wheat allergy. Other diseases triggered by eating wheat are non-coeliac gluten sensitivity (estimated to affect 0.5% to 13% of the general population), gluten ataxia, and dermatitis herpetiformis.

It has been speculated that FODMAPs present in wheat (mainly fructans) are the cause of non-coeliac gluten sensitivity. As of 2019, reviews have concluded that FODMAPs only explain certain gastrointestinal symptoms, such as bloating, but not the extra-digestive symptoms that people with non-coeliac gluten sensitivity may develop, such as neurological disorders, fibromyalgia, psychological disturbances, and dermatitis.

Other proteins present in wheat called amylase-trypsin inhibitors (ATIs) have been identified as the possible activator of the innate immune system in coeliac disease and non-coeliac gluten sensitivity. ATIs are part of the plant's natural defense against insects and may cause toll-like receptor 4 ( TLR4)-mediated intestinal inflammation in humans. These TLR4-stimulating activities of ATIs are limited to gluten-containing cereals. A 2017 study in mice demonstrated that ATIs exacerbate preexisting inflammation and might also worsen it at extraintestinal sites. This may explain why there is an increase of inflammation in people with preexisting diseases upon ingestion of ATIs-containing grains.

The following table shows the nutrient content of wheat and other major staple foods in a raw form on a dry weight basis to account for their different water contents.

Raw forms of these staples, however, are not edible and cannot be digested. These must be sprouted, or prepared and cooked as appropriate for human consumption. In sprouted or cooked form, the relative nutritional and anti-nutritional contents of each of these staples is remarkably different from that of the raw form, as reported in this table.

In cooked form, the nutrition value for each staple depends on the cooking method (for example: baking, boiling, steaming, frying, etc.).

raw yellow dent corn
raw unenriched long-grain white rice
raw hard red winter wheat
raw potato with flesh and skin
raw cassava
raw green soybeans
raw sweet potato
raw sorghum
raw yam
raw plantains
unofficial

Harvested wheat grain that enters trade is classified according to grain properties for the purposes of the commodity- and international trade markets. Wheat buyers use these to decide which wheat to buy, as each class has special uses, and producers use them to decide which classes of wheat will be most profitable to cultivate.

Wheat is widely cultivated as a cash crop because it produces a good yield per unit area, grows well in a temperate climate even with a moderately short growing season, and yields a versatile, high-quality flour that is widely used in baking. Most breads are made with wheat flour, including many breads named for the other grains they contain, for example, most rye and oat breads. The popularity of foods made from wheat flour creates a large demand for the grain, even in economies with significant food surpluses.

In recent years, low international wheat prices have often encouraged farmers in the United States to change to more profitable crops. In 1998, the price at harvest of a 60 pounds (27 kg) bushel was $2.68 per. Some information providers, following CBOT practice, quote the wheat market in per ton denomination. A USDA report revealed that in 1998, average operating costs were $1.43 per bushel and total costs were $3.97 per bushel. In that study, farm wheat yields averaged 41.7 bushels per acre (2.2435 metric ton/hectare), and typical total wheat production value was $31,900 per farm, with total farm production value (including other crops) of $173,681 per farm, plus $17,402 in government payments. There were significant profitability differences between low- and high-cost farms, due to crop yield differences, location, and farm size.

In 2020, world wheat production was 761 million tonnes, led by China, India, and Russia collectively providing 38% of the world total. As of 2019, the largest exporters were Russia (32 million tonnes), United States (27), Canada (23) and France (20), while the largest importers were Indonesia (11 million tonnes), Egypt (10.4) and Turkey (10.0).

Wheat became a central agriculture endeavor in the worldwide British Empire in the 19th century, and remains of great importance in Australia, Canada and India. In Australia, with vast lands and a limited work force, expanded production depended on technological advances, especially regarding irrigation and machinery. By the 1840s there were 900 growers in South Australia. They used the "Ridley's Stripper", to remove the heads of grain, and the reaper-harvester perfected by John Ridley in 1843. By 1850 South Australia had become the granary for the region; soon wheat farming spread to Victoria and New South Wales, with heavy exports to Great Britain. In Canada modern farm implements made large scale wheat farming possible from the late 1840s on. By the 1879s Saskatchewan was the center, followed by Alberta, Manitoba and Ontario, as the spread of railway lines allowed easy exports to Britain. By 1910 wheat made up 22% of Canada's exports, rising to 25% in 1930 despite the sharp decline in prices during the worldwide Great Depression. Efforts to expand wheat production in South Africa, Kenya and India were stymied by low yields and disease. However by 2000 India had become the second largest producer of wheat in the world.

In the 20th century, global wheat output expanded by about 5-fold, but until about 1955 most of this reflected increases in wheat crop area, with lesser (about 20%) increases in crop yields per unit area. After 1955 however, there was a ten-fold increase in the rate of wheat yield improvement per year, and this became the major factor allowing global wheat production to increase. Thus technological innovation and scientific crop management with synthetic nitrogen fertilizer, irrigation and wheat breeding were the main drivers of wheat output growth in the second half of the century. There were some significant decreases in wheat crop area, for instance in North America.

Better seed storage and germination ability (and hence a smaller requirement to retain harvested crop for next year's seed) is another 20th-century technological innovation. In Medieval England, farmers saved one-quarter of their wheat harvest as seed for the next crop, leaving only three-quarters for food and feed consumption. By 1999, the global average seed use of wheat was about 6% of output.

Several factors are currently slowing the rate of global expansion of wheat production: population growth rates are falling while wheat yields continue to rise. There is evidence, however, that rising temperatures associated with climate change are reducing wheat yield in several locations. In addition, the better economic profitability of other crops such as soybeans and maize, linked with investment in modern genetic technologies, has promoted shifts to other crops.

In the Punjab region of the Indian subcontinent, as well as North China, irrigation has been a major contributor to increased grain output. More widely over the last 40 years, a massive increase in fertilizer use together with the increased availability of semi-dwarf varieties in developing countries, has greatly increased yields per hectare. In developing countries, use of (mainly nitrogenous) fertilizer increased 25-fold in this period. However, farming systems rely on much more than fertilizer and breeding to improve productivity. A good illustration of this is Australian wheat growing in the southern winter cropping zone, where, despite low rainfall (300 mm), wheat cropping is successful even with relatively little use of nitrogenous fertilizer. This is achieved by 'rotation cropping' (traditionally called the ley system) with leguminous pastures and, in the last decade, including a canola crop in the rotations has boosted wheat yields by a further 25%. In these low rainfall areas, better use of available soil-water (and better control of soil erosion) is achieved by retaining the stubble after harvesting and by minimizing tillage.

In the rapidly developing countries of Asia and Africa, westernization of diets associated with increasing prosperity is leading to growth in per capita demand for wheat at the expense of the other food staples.

The average annual world farm yield for wheat in 2014 was 3.3 tonnes per hectare (330 grams per square meter). Ireland's wheat farms were the most productive in 2014, with a nationwide average of 10.0 tonnes per hectare, followed by the Netherlands (9.2), and Germany, New Zealand and the United Kingdom (each with 8.6).

Wheat futures are traded on the Chicago Board of Trade, Kansas City Board of Trade, and Minneapolis Grain Exchange, and have delivery dates in March (H), May (K), July (N), September (U), and December (Z).

Wheat normally needs between 110 and 130 days between sowing and harvest, depending upon climate, seed type, and soil conditions ( winter wheat lies dormant during a winter freeze). Optimal crop management requires that the farmer have a detailed understanding of each stage of development in the growing plants. In particular, spring fertilizers, herbicides, fungicides, and growth regulators are typically applied only at specific stages of plant development. For example, it is currently recommended that the second application of nitrogen is best done when the ear (not visible at this stage) is about 1 cm in size (Z31 on Zadoks scale). Knowledge of stages is also important to identify periods of higher risk from the climate. For example, pollen formation from the mother cell, and the stages between anthesis and maturity, are susceptible to high temperatures, and this adverse effect is made worse by water stress. Farmers also benefit from knowing when the 'flag leaf' (last leaf) appears, as this leaf represents about 75% of photosynthesis reactions during the grain filling period, and so should be preserved from disease or insect attacks to ensure a good yield.

Several systems exist to identify crop stages, with the Feekes and Zadoks scales being the most widely used. Each scale is a standard system which describes successive stages reached by the crop during the agricultural season.

Pests - or pests and diseases, depending on the definition - consume 21.47% of the world's wheat crop annually.

There are many wheat diseases, mainly caused by fungi, bacteria, and viruses. Plant breeding to develop new disease-resistant varieties, and sound crop management practices are important for preventing disease. Fungicides, used to prevent the significant crop losses from fungal disease, can be a significant variable cost in wheat production. Estimates of the amount of wheat production lost owing to plant diseases vary between 10 and 25% in Missouri. A wide range of organisms infect wheat, of which the most important are viruses and fungi.

The main wheat-disease categories are:

Wheat is used as a food plant by the larvae of some Lepidoptera ( butterfly and moth) species including the flame, rustic shoulder-knot, setaceous Hebrew character and turnip moth. Early in the season, many species of birds, including the long-tailed widowbird, and rodents feed upon wheat crops. These animals can cause significant damage to a crop by digging up and eating newly planted seeds or young plants. They can also damage the crop late in the season by eating the grain from the mature spike. Recent post-harvest losses in cereals amount to billions of dollars per year in the United States alone, and damage to wheat by various borers, beetles and weevils is no exception. Rodents can also cause major losses during storage, and in major grain growing regions, field mice numbers can sometimes build up explosively to plague proportions because of the ready availability of food. To reduce the amount of wheat lost to post-harvest pests, Agricultural Research Service scientists have developed an "insect-o-graph", which can detect insects in wheat that are not visible to the naked eye. The device uses electrical signals to detect the insects as the wheat is being milled. The new technology is so precise that it can detect 5-10 infested seeds out of 30,000 good ones. Tracking insect infestations in stored grain is critical for food safety as well as for the marketing value of the crop.

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Wheat is a grass widely cultivated for its seed, a cereal grain that is a worldwide staple food. The many species of wheat together make up the genus Triticum ; the most widely grown is common wheat ( T. aestivum). The archaeological record suggests that wheat was first cultivated in the regions of the Fertile Crescent around 9600 BCE.

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Vanilla is a flavoring derived from orchids of the genus Vanilla, primarily from the Mexican species, flat-leaved vanilla (V. planifolia).
The majority of the world's vanilla is the V. planifolia species, more commonly known as Bourbon vanilla (after the former name of Réunion, Île Bourbon) or Madagascar vanilla, which is produced in Madagascar and neighboring islands in the southwestern Indian Ocean, and in Indonesia. Combined, Madagascar and Indonesia produce two-thirds of the world's supply of vanilla

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“Vanilla Bean” redirects here. For the Washington, D.C. milliner, see Vanilla Beane. For the Japanese band, see Vanilla Beans (band).

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Theophrastus is often considered the father of botany for his works on plants. He was the first to use botanical definitions and nomenclature and the first to describe that leaves were used in the nutrition of the plant. In his books he proceeds to an incredibly detailed classification of plants, trees and bushes. His books contain phytogeography, information on the longevity and the diseases of plants, their fruits, their medicinal powers as well as poisons. Numerous new plants were introduced in Greece thanks to him, namely prunus laurocerasus, rice and cotton

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Historia Plantarum (Theophrastus) - Wikipedia

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Theophrastus's Enquiry into Plants or Historia Plantarum ( Greek: Περὶ φυτῶν ἱστορία, Peri phyton historia) was, along with his mentor Aristotle's History of Animals , Pliny the Elder's Natural History and Dioscorides's De Materia Medica , one of the most important books of natural history written in ancient times, and like them it was influential in the Renaissance.

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1 Centaurea cyanus, commonly known as cornflower ,
2  Ranunculus arvensis, the corn buttercup
3 Legousia speculum-veneris, the looking glass or large Venus's-looking-glass,
These are plants that in the past used to be common in agricultural fields
link: https://www.inbo.be/nl/rode-lijsten-vlaanderen

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Most of the arable plants are gone or threatened with extinction by the use of pesticides, high manure pressure and substantial changes in the reproductive range (more corn, less cereals). Fields are also deeper plowed.

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A local environmental organisation could take several steps:

-Identify where these plants still occur
-Sensitize the public to the problem
-Examine what these plants need in terms of soil and environment
-Collect the seeds of the -rare - plants and sow in nature reserves where the right conditions for the plant can be arranged
-Sensitize to the farmers to use less chemical substances and to their fields to manage in a different way.
-On a higher level search cooperation– state, country, Europe – to become stricter the legislation of pesticides.

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Ooit kleurden de akkers van rood naar blauw tot geel door een grote rijkdom aan akkerkruiden die tussen de gewassen konden groeien. Met de komst van herbiciden werden ze plots als "onkruiden" bestreden om de opbrengst te verhogen. Chemische onkruidbestrijding werd het handelsmerk van de agro-industrie, waardoor veel van deze soorten akkerkruiden bijna volledig verdwenen zijn uit Vlaanderen. Bestaat er nog een kans om ze terug te krijgen?
Akkerplanten zijn hoofdzakelijk kortlevende pioniersoorten die gediend zijn met een bodem die jaarlijks omgewoeld wordt. Het zijn in die zin soorten die floreren bij gratie van de landbouw. Er zijn in ons land meer dan 100 soorten akkerkruiden. De meeste verkiezen een weinig bemeste bodem zonder chemische onkruidbestrijding. Veel akkerkruiden waren tot halfweg de 20 ste eeuw goed vertegenwoordigd in Vlaanderen. Landbouw was kleinschalig, gebruikte weinig of geen kunstmest en geen pesticiden. Er was veel handenarbeid en een beperkt machinepark.

Onder impuls van het Europese landbouwbeleid -de wereld moest gevoed worden- is de landbouw sinds de jaren zestig veel intensiever en grootschaliger geworden. Zuiver productiegedreven landbouw heeft echter een keerzijde voor de natuur. Het merendeel van de akkerplanten zijn verdwenen of met uitsterven bedreigd door onder meer chemische onkruidbestrijding, hoge mestdruk en ingrijpende wijzigingen in het teeltaanbod (meer maïs, minder granen).Velden worden ook dieper geploegd en gewassen dichter ingezaaid.

Akkerbloterbloem was 100 jaar geleden nog algemeen in de Leemstreek en nu staat ze op de Rode Lijst als "Met uitsterven bedreigd". De zaden hechten zich vast aan de vacht van dieren (foto: Jules Robijns). Wat kunnen we doen?
Spontaan herstel uit de eeuwenoude zaadbanken van ons Vlaamse akkerland zou het ideale scenario zijn, maar dat rijmt anno 2018 niet met intensief landbouwgebruik. Bovendien is die zaadbank in de bemeste en diep geploegde landbouwbodems volledig verdwenen. Daarom wijken de meest zeldzame akkerkruiden beter naar akkerreservaten met aangepast natuurbeheer. Dat wijken zal soms ook letterlijk moeten gebeuren, waarbij plantensoorten terug ingebracht worden in gebieden waar ze ooit voorkwamen met de juiste milieuomstandigheden. Deze akkers krijgen dan de nodige landbouwbewerkingen die volledig in functie staan van akkerflora en waar de opbrengsten verwaarloosbaar zijn. Concreet gebeurt dat door akkers in oktober met wintergranen in te zaaien. De akker wordt daarbij slechts oppervlakkig bewerkt (frezen en eggen) en niet diep geploegd. In augustus wordt het graan er regulier gedorst en het stro van het veld gehaald. Veel graanopbrengst heeft zo'n akker niet, maar daar tegenover staat dan wel de kleurenpracht van weleer.
Akkerflora in beheerovereenkomsten?
Die klassieke instrumenten in landbouwgebied (zoals bijvoorbeeld de beheerovereenkomsten van de Vlaamse Landmaatschappij) bieden geen volwaardige oplossing om onze akkerflora veilig te stellen omdat ze telkens een beperkte looptijd van vijf jaar hebben. Zodra het perceel na vijf jaar terug in gebruik genomen wordt voor productie, zouden dan alle geïntroduceerde soorten en spontaan opgekomen soorten terug verdwijnen door de gangbare bemesting en herbicidenbehandelingen en wordt elke voorafgaande inspanning tenietgedaan.

Voor akkervogels bestaan vandaag al beheerovereenkomsten met landbouwers. Helaas geven die maatregelen in de huidige vorm niet zo veel kansen aan akkerflora, zelfs voor de meer courante soorten. Dat blijkt ook uit een project dat werd uitgevoerd door Natuurpunt Studie voor de provincie Vlaams-Brabant. Nieuwe beheerovereenkomsten waarbij graanstoppels uit het voorgaande jaar kunnen 'overzomeren' zonder gebruik van herbiciden zouden kansen bieden voor de meer courante akkerkruiden zoals Klaproos, Gewone spurrie, Grote windhalm, Akkerviooltje, ... Het zijn overigens zaden van die kruiden waar akkervogels in het voorjaar hun eerste honger mee stillen, een win-win dus.
Restanten uit het verleden en herstelprojecten
Restanten van rijke akkerflora zijn zeldzaam: in ons land vind je ze in Beauraing, Tanville, de omgeving van Viroinval en de Gaume (Belgische Lorraine). In het Duitse Govelin zijn de Roggelelies een echte attractie.

In Nederland is er een bekende flora-akker in Zuid-Limburg en wordt er gewerkt aan herstelprojecten op diverse locaties in . In Vlaanderen tracht Jules Robijns met een eigen project akkerflora in Oost-Brabant in stand te houden. Daarover lees je meer in de presentatie onderaan op deze pagina . Ondertussen adviseert Jules her en der afdelingen die met akkerbeheer in natuurgebied bezig zijn.
Groot spiegelklokje was 100 jaar geleden nog vrij algemeen, maar staat nu op de Rode Lijst als "Bedreigd". Het is een soort van graanakkers en braakliggende stoppelvelden (foto: Jules Robijns). Akkerkruiden en onkruiden
Landbouwers hoeven niet te vrezen dat herstelprojecten voor akkerflora een bedreiging vormen voor de productiviteit van de landbouw. De zeldzame akkersoorten die we graag terug zien verschijnen zijn geen woekersoorten die het gangbare landbouwgebied zullen intrekken. Het zijn soorten die niet bestand zijn tegen de hoge bemesting, het diepe ploegen en gebruik van herbiciden. Ze vereisen een specifiek, intensief beheer, waarbij door oppervlakkige grondbewerking de veel voorkomende woekeraars (distels, kweek, Kruipende boterbloem, ...) worden verwijderd ten voordele van de soorten die bijna overal in Vlaanderen verdwenen zijn. Soorten die we graag terug willen op onze kruidenakkers zijn onder andere Korensla, Naaldenkervel, Akkerboterbloem, Handjesereprijs en Groot spiegelklokje.

Tekst: Roosmarijn Steeman, Natuurpunt Studie & Jules Robijns, expert akkerflora

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Heeft akkerflora nog toekomst in Vlaanderen?

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Ooit kleurden de akkers van rood naar blauw tot geel door een grote rijkdom aan akkerkruiden die tussen de gewassen konden groeien. Met de komst van herbiciden werden ze plots als "onkruiden" bestreden om de opbrengst te verhogen. Chemische onkruidbestrijding werd het handelsmerk van de agro-industrie, waardoor veel van deze soorten akkerkruiden bijna volledig verdwenen zijn uit Vlaanderen.

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ONE OF THE MOST IMPORTANT AND OLDEST FOOD CROPS IN THE WHOLE WORLD.

Pulses are the dried edible seeds of certain plants in the legume family. ( Leguminosae of Fabaceae). The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) recognizes 11 types of pulses grown worldwide. Beans, lentils, chickpeas and split peas are the most common types of pulses. Since 1959, the UN has dedicated special years and observances to promote international awareness and action on various topics.

IMPORTANCE OF THIS FOOD CROP:
- high nutritional value. Pulses are very high in protein and fibre, and are low in fat.

- Pulses are also nitrogen-fixing crops that improve the environmental sustainability of annual cropping systems.

HISTORY:

The cultivated lentil Lens culinaris was derived from its wild subspecies L. culinaris subsp. orientalis, although other species may also have contributed some genes, according to Jonathan Sauer (Historical Geography of Crop Plants, 2017.) Unlike their wild ancestors, domesticated lentil crops have indehiscent pods and nondormant seeds.

Lentils are the oldest pulse crop known, and among the earliest crops domesticated in the Old World, having been found as carbonized remains alongside human habitations dating to 11,000 BC in Greece.[2] The lentil is indigenous to Western and Central Asia.

In early times, peas - Pisum sativum  - were grown mostly for their dry seeds. From plants growing wild in the Mediterranean basin, constant selection since the Neolithic dawn of agriculture improved their yield. In the early 3rd century BC Theophrastus mentions peas among the pulses that are sown late in the winter because of their tenderness.  In the first century AD, Columella mentions them in De re rustica, when Roman legionaries still gathered wild peas from the sandy soils of Numidia and Judea to supplement their rations. In the Middle Ages, field peas are constantly mentioned, as they were the staple that kept famine at bay, as Charles the Good, count of Flanders, noted explicitly in 1124.

DOMESTICATION OF PULSES
On the basis of an examination and evaluation of archeological remains and  an identification of the wild progenitors and delimitation of their geographic distribution, it was concluded that pea (Pisum sativum) and lentil should be regarded as founder crops of Old World Neolithic agriculture. Most probably they were domesticated, in the Near East, simultaneously with wheats and barley (certainly not later than the sixth millennium B.C.). Bitter vetch shows a similar mode of origin. The evidence on the broad bean and the chickpea is much more fragmentary and the wild progenitors of these legumes are yet not satisfactorily identified. But also these two pulses emerge as important food elements in Bronze Age cultures of the Near East and Europe.

FAO ACTIONS TO PROMOTE PULSES:

FAO: is the Food and Agriculture Organization is a specialized agency of the UN that leads internatinal efforts to defeat hunger. The goal is achieve food security for al land make sure that people have regular access to enough quality food to lead active healthy lives.
The specific objectives of the Year of the pulse

Raise awareness about the important role of pulses in sustainable food production and healthy diets and their contribution to food security and nutrition;

Promote the value and utilization of pulses throughout the food system, their benefits for soil fertility and climate change and for combating malnutrition;

Encourage connections throughout the food chain to further global production of pulses, foster enhanced research, better utilize crop rotations and address the challenges in the trade of pulses.

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The story of cowpea (black-eyed peas) is a fascinating example of how science can solve the world's biggest problems–even more fascinating is the story of the scientist behind the research. B.B. Singh wrote this book to serve as an accessible summary of cowpea breeding, management, and use. He has devoted his life's work to solving the “protein gap” of the Green Revolution in which the emphasis on corn and wheat neglected the protein-rich legumes vital to plant-based nutrition. Today, under his careful tending, cowpea truly has become the food legume of the century. From genetics to recipes, he gives a full account of how cowpea belongs in our global agriculture and in every diet. Along the way, he shares his inspiring story

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Book: Cowpea: The Food Legume of the 21st Century, 2014 Published by: Crop Science Society of America, Inc. | Digital Library

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The story of cowpea (black-eyed peas) is a fascinating example of how science can solve the world's biggest problems-even more fascinating is the story of the scientist behind the research. B.B. Singh wrote this book to serve as an accessible summary of cowpea breeding, management, and use.

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Most plans have been made in the same way, some more and others less detailed. I especially think that the padlets of co-learners have more beautiful pictures. It is also clear that some colleagues have better botanical knowledge as me.
Anyway, it is very fascinating to read the works of colleagues and learn more about the situation in other countries