Short answers, pulled from the story.
Hunter-gatherers in West Asia harvested wild wheats for thousands of years before they were domesticated, perhaps as early as 21000 BC. These early cultivars spread around the region and slowly developed traits that came to characterize their domesticated forms.
Wild einkorn wheat grows across Southwest Asia in open parkland and steppe environments with a fragile rachis that allows ears to shatter easily. Domesticated varieties feature a toughened rachis where grains remain attached to the ear during harvesting without shattering without pressure.
In 2023 world wheat production reached 799 million tonnes led by China India and Russia collectively providing 42.4% of total output. The largest exporters included Russia shipping 32 million tonnes followed by the United States at 27 million tonnes Canada delivering 23 million tonnes and France contributing 20 million tonnes.
Winter wheat lies dormant during freeze requiring long period below four degrees Celsius suffering heat stress temperatures rise above thirty-two degrees Celsius. Spring wheat grows best between twenty-one and twenty-four degrees Celsius tolerating ranges four to thirty-five degrees Celsius germination below four reduces yields maturation above thirty-five limits production.
In 2010 ninety-five percent genome Chinese Spring line forty-two wheat decoded released basic format scientists breeders use fully annotated version. Two thousand twelve published essentially complete gene set bread wheat Random shotgun libraries total DNA cDNA T aestivum cv Chinese Spring CS42 sequenced generating eighty-five gigabases sequence two hundred million reads identifying between ninety-four thousand ninety-six thousand genes.