Selection of Wheat Varieties Part 1

The genus Triticum comprises both wild and domesticated species, subspecies, and varieties. Wheat has been cultivated for at least 10,000 years. The continual selection of wheat by humans in varied environments and over vast geographical distances has produced numerous morphological, physiological, and genetic variations.

There is little wonder that attempts to classify the many different varieties and cultivars based on morphological and genetic characters has led to much confusion. Moreover scientists have in the past given botanical names to some artificially developed species and mutants. There is no universally accepted taxonomy, but much of the confusion can be avoided if only one scheme is followed.

A reasonably comprehensive understanding of the species, varieties, and cultivars from such a vast area of distribution over such a long period of time is challenging to say the least.

While browsing the web I came across a Table of Wheat Species which provided me with some much needed clarity and perspective. The table is an excellent summary of the principal wheat species and varieties in existence, and follows the genetic classification of GRIN Taxonomy for Plants compared with Dorofeev's traditional classification scheme (1979). I reproduce it here with modifications*.

* Note: I have modified the table from Wikipedia Taxonomy of Wheat and it is re-used here under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License (“CC BY-SA”), and GNU Free Documentation License (“GFDL”), as outlined on the Wikimedia Foundation's Terms of Use policy. I agree to license the modified or added content in accordance with the license under which the work was originally made available and intended. Moreover the intellectual work of all original authors is acknowledged and I do not imply any personal copyright of the table.

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