Cereals: Value and Benefits

Cereals since ancient times were a significant part of the human diet. The list of basic cereals includes: rye, wheat, oats, barley, buckwheat, sorghum, millet, rice, corn. The plant is considered a monocotyledon. They have a stalk - a straw, the leaves have a parallel venation, a fibrous root, a fruit - a seed. All types of plants are divided into winter crops (they are sown in late summer or early autumn) and spring (sown in the spring).

Cereals

Cereals (photo in the text) - without exaggeration the most important group of cultivated plants. Grain is not only a food product for humans and farm animals, but also serves as raw materials for numerous industries.

In its composition, a grain of cereals contains:

• Carbohydrates;
• Proteins;
• Enzymes;
• Vitamins PP, group B (B ₁ , B ₂ , B ₆ ), provitamin A.

Wheat

With the word "cereal", wheat immediately comes to mind. It is grown on all continents (except Antarctica). Under its crops, almost 140 million hectares of fertile land are occupied.

Modern selection provides an opportunity to cultivate more than 4000 varieties. In the steppes, you can meet 20 species of wild wheat. The birthplace of culture is the southwest of Asia: Palestine, Mesopotamia, Jordan, Syria.

Wheat is present in the daily diet of almost half of the world's inhabitants. Grain is used for flour, cereals and pasta. It is simply impossible to list all the products that can be made from processed wheat grain. Their variety is impressive.

There are three main types:

• Single-grain;
• Bifurcate (emmer);
• Spelled.

They are the progenitors of all subspecies known today. From emers, solid varieties of wheat occur. They are better suited to dry climate. They are grown in the USA, Australia, Canada. Hard cereals are used for the production of pasta. Nesortovaya wheat goes to feed cattle. Seeding refers to the numerous spelled family. This is the main material for selection of new varieties.

Millet

Millet even belongs to the category of "cereals", but it is not used for baking bread. The grain goes to the groats, and from the flour bakes flat bread and bread. The homeland of this herb is China and Mongolia. The Scythians were growing millet in the 4th-5th centuries. Excavations in the area of the Middle Dnieper confirm this fact. In ancient China, millet was listed as five plants that were considered sacred.

In the prose, a high protein content (more only in wheat). The millet seed is the smallest and hardest among the cereals. The outer silicon shell during the processing of the grain is removed (it is not digested in the human stomach). After that, the groats are perfectly digested and well digested.

Represents value and as a forage crop. Millet is widely used in animal husbandry, especially in the poultry industry.

There are up to 500 species of this cereal. Millet perfectly tolerates drought both soil and air. An unpretentious and hardy plant requires only a well aerated soil - from it the roots use the air of respiration. Productivity reaches 18 quintals per hectare. Under crops are occupied 12 million hectares.

Millet is divided into the following types of cereals:

• Seeding;
• Chumiza;
• sorghum.

Sorghum

Cereals are sorghum from Africa. His wild ancestor was lost in the past centuries, nothing is known for sure. In tropical countries sorghum is an important grain culture. Resistance to drought (it is sometimes called a camel in the plant world) and high yields put it out of competition for cultivation in arid regions of the earth.

A feature of the culture is that when harvesting the grain, the stems and leaves retain the juicy greens. This makes it possible to use sorghum for feeding cattle in the form of silage or green mass.

Curiously, hybrid sorghum varieties yield 40% more yield than the parent couple. This property is widely used for obtaining record grain yields. From it prepare porridges, as from usual groats. Flour is used for baking bread, pancakes and other flour dishes.

Rye

In comparison with wheat, rye is considered a younger cereal crop. She was not found in the dwellings of our ancestors from the Stone Age. Nor was it in the tombs.

Initially, rye performed in the cultural crops of wheat as a weed. In the harsh conditions of the north and the highlands, wheat yielded a poor harvest and perished. Rye, on the contrary, perfectly tolerated severe conditions. Over time, it has evolved into a cultural cereal.

Even in the first century, a scientist Pliny from Rome gave her such a characteristic: heavy, dark bread, poor quality bread, suitable only for satisfying hunger. Nevertheless, the nutritiousness of products made from rye flour is high.

Currently, the culture is cultivated mainly in the Northern Hemisphere. Cultivated up to 8 species in Asia, Europe and Africa. There are spring and winter varieties of this plant. Productivity reaches 2 tons per hectare. In addition to the fact that it is a grain crop that yields excellent crops, rye is used as a natural baking powder. The roots of the plant, well branched, penetrate deep into the soil, grow intensively and loosen the fertile layer.

A unpretentious crop can grow on poor soils. A feature of rye is its ability to grow well in high mountains. In the Alps, rye is found even at an altitude of 2000 meters.

From the flour of this cereal you can bake not only bread, but also delicious pastry, the main thing is that the flour was of good quality. Relatively cheap in production, the crop is also used for feeding farm animals.

Corn

Corn, or maize, is an annual cereal. The birthplace of this amazing plant is South and Central America. On the European continent, culture fell into the late fifteenth century.

Corn stands out against the backdrop of all the famous cereals with its gigantic growth. The variety "horse tooth" can grow up to 5 meters. The largest yields are harvested in the homeland of corn. Soft warm climate and abundant rainfall are the best for its cultivation.

Modern selection offers grain and fodder varieties. To date, there are nine botanical groups:

• Tooth-shaped;
• Bursting;
• Siliceous;
• Half-tooth (the most common);
• Starchy;
• Sugar;
• Starchy-sugar;
• Filmy (practically not grown);
• Waxy (small areas of cultivation).

Rice

Presumably the birthplace of rice is India. There it is cultivated for many millennia. In Europe it is known from the 8th century BC, in Central Asia from the 2-3th centuries BC, and in America from the 15th to the 16th. Scientists are inclined to think that it was rice that was the very first culture produced by man.

This cereal has up to 20 species, more than one thousand of its varieties are known. But all this diversity is divided into three types according to the shape of the grain:

• Long-grain;
• Round-grained;
• Medium-grained.

Every year breeders bring out new types of plants. The need for a high-yielding and hardy variety is very high. This is because more than half of the world's population considers rice to be the main food in their diet. It is not for nothing that it is called white gold and second bread (although it does not bake bread from it).

Rice is cultivated in countries with a tropical climate. This requires a special technology. The main thing for the culture is abundant watering and warmth. Water plays a crucial role - after all, the cultivation takes place on fields filled with water.

Barley

Along with wheat, barley is the oldest cereal on the planet. The mention of it was found in different cultures of the peoples of Europe, Middle and West Asia, in Egypt.

Like wheat, it is represented on all continents of the planet. The plant is cultivated in tropical regions and in northern regions. Barley is called the most "northern" cereal. It can be found up to 70 latitudes (in Norway). It grows in mountainous conditions:

• At an altitude of up to 1900 m in the Alps;
• At an altitude of up to 2,700 m in the Caucasus;
• At an altitude of 3050 m on the Hindu Kush;
• At an altitude of up to 4700 m in Tibet.

Barley is demanding for soils. Sour and sandy areas are not suitable for its cultivation. Too wet or swampy areas carry the risk of the crop freezing out. In general, the quality of the grain itself largely depends on the treatment of the fertile layer. At present, about 30 plant species are known. There are winter and spring varieties.

Oats

It is assumed that oats were first cultivated in Europe for the first time. Wild culture is very sensitive to cold, so scientists believe that it can not be a direct ancestor of modern oats. There is a theory that all cereals were bred on Atlantis, a sunken continent.

Today there are about 25 kinds of oats. This is a very healthy food product. A small amount of fat in the grain facilitates the unloading of cholesterol metabolism. This provides protection of the heart and circulatory system, prevents atherosclerosis.

In agriculture, grain is used in its pure form for feeding different kinds of animals or as a component in feed mixtures.