Growing Food: A Guide to Food Production

Hard grain varieties (which have a vitreous endosperm) are normally grown in

for bread.

Soft grain varieties (which have a mealy endosperm) are normally grown in more

mainly for cakes, biscuits, pastry, etc.
Wheat grain can be classed into six groups:
Hard, red winter wheat
Hard, red spring wheat
Soft, red winter wheat
White wheat
Durum (macaroni) wheat
Red durum wheat

Normally grown in humid regions.

Soft grain varieties which can grow with very little rainfall.

Triticum durum (formerly classified as T. turgidum var. durum).

The grain is long and pointed, very hard and more amber in colour than red or white.
It has a very high gluten content, but this does not retain carbon dioxide to the same
extent as bread wheat gluten. The protein content is about 13%, and there are about
17–35,000 seeds per kg. Durum wheat is mainly used for macaroni, pasta, spaghetti,

Durum wheat.

1. Spring Wheat
   Mainly grown either in very cold regions where if wheat were to be planted in the
   autumn it would not survive the winter, or in warmer regions on the occasions when
   for one reason or another winter wheats cannot be grown. As their name implies
   they are normally planted in the spring, ideally not until the soil temperature has
   reached about 4C; they are however also planted at other seasons, normally at the
   start of the rainy season.
   Spring wheats need about 100 frost-free days, and do not need to be vernalised
   by low temperatures (1Fg, page 59) in order to flower. Flowering is induced when
   the day length becomes long enough.


2. Winter Wheat
   Planted in the autumn in temperate regions. They need to be vernalised, sometimes
   for weeks at a time, in order for the plants to pass from the vegetative stage to the
   reproductive stage. In temperate regions, about 75% of all wheat grown is winter
   wheat.

• • • • • •

strong

humid areas, have a lower protein content of about 8–10% (weak), and are used

vertisols between 1800 and 2800 m asl. There are no fully winter hardy varieties of

°

144 TONY WINCH

drier areas, have a protein content of about 11–15% (“ ”) and are used mainly

There are two types of wheat grain, hard and soft, & two colours, red and white:

(1)

(2)

(3)

(1)
(2)
(3)

There are 3 main types of Triticum aestivum wheat, and many thousands of named
varieties:

noodles, etc. Many types of Durum are grown in Ethiopia, mainly on the highland