[19] Hunter-gatherers in West Asia harvested wild wheats for thousands of years before they were domesticated,[20] perhaps as early as 21,000 BC,[21] but they formed a minor component of their diets.

[22] In this phase of pre-domestication cultivation, early cultivars were spread around the region and slowly developed the traits that came to characterise their domesticated forms.

[23] Repeated harvesting and sowing of the grains of wild grasses led to the creation of domestic strains, as mutant forms ('sports') of wheat were more amenable to cultivation.

In domesticated wheat, grains are larger, and the seeds (inside the spikelets) remain attached to the ear by a toughened rachis during harvesting.

[28] The main feature that distinguishes domestic einkorn from wild is that its ears do not shatter without pressure, making it dependent on humans for dispersal and reproduction.

dicoccoides) is less widespread than einkorn, favouring the rocky basaltic and limestone soils found in the hilly flanks of the Fertile Crescent.

[27] Slightly earlier finds have been reported from Tell Aswad in Syria, c. 8500–8200 BC, but these were identified using a less reliable method based on grain size.

Initially, farmers took advantage of wheat's ability to establish itself in annual grasslands by enclosing fields against grazing animals and re-sowing stands after they had been harvested, without the need to systematically remove vegetation or till the soil.

[34] They may also have exploited natural wetlands and floodplains to practice décrue farming, sowing seeds in the soil left behind by receding floodwater.

[38] The ease of storing wheat and other cereals led farming households to become gradually more reliant on it over time, especially after they developed individual storage facilities that were large enough to hold more than a year's supply.

[53] As of 2023,[update] the earliest known wheat with sufficient gluten for yeasted breads was found in a granary at Assiros in Macedonia dated to 1350 BC.

[55][56] 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.

[59][62] A 2007 molecular phylogeny of the wheats gives the following not fully-resolved cladogram of major cultivated species; the large amount of hybridisation makes resolution difficult.

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.

Wheat is a major ingredient in such foods as bread, porridge, crackers, biscuits, muesli, pancakes, pasta, pies, pastries, pizza, semolina, cakes, cookies, muffins, rolls, doughnuts, gravy, beer, vodka, boza (a fermented beverage), and breakfast cereals.

[86] In a reference amount of 100 grams (3.5 oz), 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 dietary minerals, such as manganese, phosphorus, magnesium, zinc, and iron (table).

[93] Supplementation with proteins from other food sources (mainly legumes) is commonly used to compensate for this deficiency,[94] since the limitation of a single essential amino acid causes the others to break down and become excreted, which is especially important during growth.

[102][103][104] Other wheat proteins, amylase-trypsin inhibitors, have been identified as the possible activator of the innate immune system in coeliac disease and non-coeliac gluten sensitivity.

[88][112] 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 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.

Yields of pure wheat per unit area increased as methods of crop rotation were applied to land that had long been in cultivation, and the use of fertilizers became widespread.

[134] 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.

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.

The standard method of breeding inbred wheat cultivars is by crossing two lines using hand emasculation, then selfing or inbreeding the progeny.

ICARDA is another major public sector international wheat breeder, but it was forced to relocate from Syria to Lebanon in the Syrian Civil War.

[156] 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.

[157] "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.

Basic physiological investigation of these gas exchange processes has yielded carbon isotope based method used for breeding wheat varieties with improved water-use efficiency.

Comparison of hexaploid wheat genomes using a range of chromosome pseudomolecule and molecular scaffold assemblies in 2020 has enabled the resistance potential of its genes to be assessed.

[199] The Dutch artist Vincent van Gogh created the series Wheat Fields between 1885 and 1890, consisting of dozens of paintings made mostly in different parts of rural France.