{"id":4849,"date":"2009-08-25T12:14:50","date_gmt":"2009-08-25T18:14:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/wordpress-367309-1145705.cloudwaysapps.com\/?p=4849"},"modified":"2009-08-25T12:14:50","modified_gmt":"2009-08-25T18:14:50","slug":"why-wheat-is-an-orphan-crop-conclusion","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sustainablog.org\/articles\/why-wheat-is-an-orphan-crop-conclusion\/","title":{"rendered":"Why Wheat is an “Orphan Crop:” Conclusion"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Historical<\/a>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

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The chart above shows the historical average yields for wheat and corn in the US. \u00a0Note that until the 1930s the relative yields of the crops were similar and were not changing. \u00a0After that time yields of both crops began to rise steadily, but corn yields have grown at a much faster pace. \u00a0What explains this difference?<\/p>\n

There\u00a0are several interacting factors behind this, and they work together to create the “orphan<\/a>” status of wheat as a crop. \u00a0Corn is a hybrid<\/a> crop which enhances its yield and the ease of increasing its yield through breeding. \u00a0Wheat is harder to hybridize so it isn’t practical except for extremely high yielding wheat areas like Northern Europe. \u00a0Instead, US wheat is largely a “saved seed crop”<\/a> meaning that the grower can simply save back some of the grain and replant it rather than needing to buy new hybrid seed each year. \u00a0That system\u00a0is workable, particularly if the grower periodically buys some “certified seed”<\/a> to have a purer stand and to take advantage of breeding improvements. \u00a0The down-side of a “saved seed crop” is that there is not a very big private seed industry to invest<\/a> in the crop. \u00a0Most of the breeding is done by University and USDA breeder supported by tax dollars and there is a small private industry as well. \u00a0As I said in the previous post, these breeders have done a remarkable job<\/a> with the resources they have, but in an increasingly ag-unaware society, that support is never generous.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Soybeans are also not hybrid in the US, but that crop has seen substantial private investment. \u00a0First this was because corn\/soy is the most common crop rotation<\/a> and a corn seed company had to have a good soybean offering to be competitive. \u00a0Since 1996 private investment in soy has grown even more because it is a biotech crop. \u00a0Still, the gains in soy yields are not dramatic. \u00a0Instead soy breeding and biotechnology has expanded where soy can be grown. \u00a0It is now adapted to colder, Northern areas, and also dryer, Western areas. \u00a0The latter is also true of corn, particularly as these crops are increasingly grown under a no-till system enabled in part by the biotech herbicide tolerance available in those crops (see an earlier post for all the environmental advantages of that system<\/a>).<\/p>\n

So, what has been the result of these chronic disadvantages for wheat (not hybrid, limited private investment…)? \u00a0See the map below.<\/p>\n

\"Historical<\/p>\n

I used USDA Census of Agriculture<\/a> data paired with land area data for each county to look at how much change there had been in wheat planting in each US county between 1977 (when I started working in Ag technology) and 2007. \u00a0The blue areas lost wheat and the darker blue lost more. \u00a0The red areas gained wheat planting. Note particularly how wheat declined in the Red River Valley<\/a> that runs between North Dakota and Minnesota and down past Eastern South Dakota. \u00a0That is where premium bread wheat<\/a> was traditionally grown, but where corn and particularly soy have benefited from superior breeding investment. \u00a0This change has been driving the wheat to the dry, Western parts of that region. \u00a0Note also the decline of wheat in Nebraska and Kansas as corn and soy pushed into those dry areas. \u00a0Lots of wheat has also\u00a0disappeared\u00a0from the Eastern corn belt in Illinois, Indiana and Ohio. \u00a0Wheat plantings have also declined in the Pacific Northwest. \u00a0The small increases in other regions has not made up for this shift at all.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Wheat growers have been watching these trends for a long time and are rightly concerned<\/a>. \u00a0This is not just about us, the US supplies wheat to the rest of the world including many poor countries that can’t grow enough of their own. \u00a0This is why a majority of wheat growers in the US and the other largest exporters<\/a>, Canada and Australia, want to see biotechnology used for wheat<\/a>. \u00a0It could help with drought tolerance,\u00a0Fusarium<\/a><\/em> resistance, salt tolerance and other issues that have proven difficult to deal with through conventional breeding. \u00a0Biotech could make it easier to grow No-till wheat<\/a> with all its environmental benefits. \u00a0It could bring some much needed private investment to the wheat crop.<\/p>\n

Major wheat customers in Europe and Japan blocked biotech wheat 5-6 years ago because they didn’t want any issues with their consumers. \u00a0This unofficial blockage was carried out even though several panels of EU scientists have argued for the safety of biotech, and even though other biotech crops have been grown safely on billions of acres over more than 12 years. \u00a0This is a bow to the “precautionary” leanings of activist minorities in affluent cultures that are in no risk of food shortage. \u00a0Those same countries have also reduced their support<\/a> over time for the international agencies that do wheat breeding for the developing world at places like CIMMYT<\/a>.<\/p>\n

These anti-GMO forces need to explain just how they imagine feeding the next 3 billion people on the planet, in an age of extreme weather events caused by global warming, when one of the most important human food crops<\/a> is lagging so far behind.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

[social_buttons] The chart above shows the historical average yields for wheat and corn in the US. \u00a0Note that until the 1930s the relative yields of the crops were similar and [ … ]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":110,"featured_media":4865,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9,21],"tags":[2984,3841,133,626,3741,3842,3791,3843,1365],"yoast_head":"\nWhy Wheat is an "Orphan Crop:" Conclusion • Sustainablog<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/sustainablog.org\/articles\/why-wheat-is-an-orphan-crop-conclusion\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Why Wheat is an "Orphan Crop:" Conclusion • Sustainablog\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" 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