Wheat: A Crop in the Bottom of the Mediterranean Diet Pyramid

Abstract

Wheat currently provides 18% of the daily intake of calories and 20% of proteins for humans. Since its domestication in the Fertile Crescent, wheat has been the basic staple food of the major civilizations of Europe, West Asia and North Africa. The wheatgrowing area within the Mediterranean Basin represents 27% of the arable land, and the region represents 60% of the world's growing area for durum wheat, the species used for pasta manufacturing. Many changes have occurred from the low-productive plants cultivated in prehistoric times to the modern varieties that are now grown, which ofer high productivity and quality standards. During the migration process of ancient forms of wheat from the east to the west of the Mediterranean Basin, both natural and human selections occurred, resulting in the development of local landraces characterized by their huge genetic diversity and their documented resilience to abiotic stresses. Wheat breeding activities conducted in the Mediterranean Basin during the twentieth century resulted in large genetic gains in yield and quality. New wheat varieties to be grown in the Mediterranean Basin will need to be resilient to climate change because more frequent episodes of higher temperatures and water scarcity are to be expected.

UAV and Ground Image-Based Phenotyping: A Proof of Concept with Durum Wheat

“…Moreover, there wasn't any significant effect from platform proximity (distance between the sensor and crop canopy) on the vegetation indexes, and both ground and aerial measurements performed similarly in assessing yield.2 of 25 principal goal for breeders. Durum wheat is, by extension, the main cereal cultivated on the southern and eastern shores of the Mediterranean Basin and one of the main cereals in southern Europe [4].Yield is a phenotypically complicated trait, not only because of its genetic complexity [5], but also due to the relative magnitude of gene-environment interactions [6,7], and it is one of the most integrative traits influenced by known and unknown factors. Thus, genotype evaluations in multi-environment trials are needed, at least in the advanced (generations) stages of selection.…”

“…2 of 25 principal goal for breeders. Durum wheat is, by extension, the main cereal cultivated on the southern and eastern shores of the Mediterranean Basin and one of the main cereals in southern Europe [4].…”

Life story of Tunisian durum wheat landraces revealed by their genetic and phenotypic diversity

“…Characterizing the phenotypic diversity of durum wheat landraces, known to be often agromorphologically heterogeneous (Royo & al., 2017), is prominent towards an understanding of their life history, in other words the selection trajectory and seed exchanges between farmers. Indeed, the 14 studied populations were agro-morphologically diversified with a mean Shannon-Wiener index of H'=0.54, estimated with 15 phenotypic traits.…”

“…durum) is one of the most crucial crops in the Mediterranean countries. It's a selfing tetraploid species (2n = 4x = 28, AABB) that originated and diversified in the Mediterranean basin (Martínez-Moreno & al., 2020), which is the largest durum wheat producing region worldwide, accounting for about 60% of the total growing area (Royo & al., 2017). This traditional crop is the raw material for the fabrication of local dishes and products including couscous, pasta, several kinds of bread and other semolina products such as bulgur and frike (Belaid 2000;Nazco & al., 2014;Hammami & Sissons, 2020).…”

Engineered Durum Wheat Germplasm with Multiple Alien Introgressions: Agronomic and Quality Performance

“…[1]. In keeping with the crop's geographical origin, hence adaptation to mild winters and dry summers, the Mediterranean region represents the largest world's growing area (60%) for durum wheat [2]. Other major cropping regions are in Northern United States of America, Canada and Northern Mexico, besides minor ones in Southern Eurasia, India, South Australia and Argentina [3][4][5].…”