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| Monday December 01, 2008 | Accessibility help | Text only | Print | Send to a friend | Make this my homepage | Contact Us | Help |
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Agriculture and Weather (Wheat) | 
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Wheat and other cereals are fundamental elements in the world's staple diet.
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Weather is a vital element in the growth of plants and crops, but can also be a negative force in the development and survival of such vital foodstuffs. Wheat and other cereal crops can be hit by all manner of diseases...
Wheat and other cereal crops can be hit by all manner of diseases, which can destroy the plant. These diseases are called: common Bunt; Loose Smut; Septoria Glume Blotch; Scab; Barley Yellow Dwarf; Soilborne Wheat Mosaic; and Wheat Yellow Mosaic. Each has its own symptoms and affects different parts of the plant. However, the one thing they have in common is that they all have favourable weather conditions that help in their development.
For example, the common Bunt disease is favoured by low temperatures and moist conditions. The Barley Yellow Dwarf disease favours cool and dry conditions. The Scab disease development favours high temperatures and moist conditions. Many of the other diseases develop quicker in fluctuating temperatures. Waterlogged soils make it impossible to plant seeds and do not encourage growth
It appears that the wheat crop can be unfortunate no matter what the weather. Weather can affect the crop in ways other than aiding disease. Floods caused by excessive rainfall have been major factor in causing crops to fail, as they irrevocably damage the plant or pull them out of the ground with their force. Waterlogged soils make it impossible to plant seeds and do not encourage growth.
On the other hand, a lack of rainwater can affect crop growth. Rain is a vital element in plant growth, and a lack of it can cause dry, brittle, and discoloured leaves and stalks. In extreme measures, a lack of rain can cause a drought, which will stunt the crops' growth. When such conditions prevail, the crops can become completely unusable, and the crop has failed. Crop failure can lead to famine; and also affects the export of such goods within the world trade market. With so many diseases and weather conditions that target wheat crops and other such cereals, it is necessary to be extremely careful in monitoring the growth of the plants. The age-old problem of dealing with cereal crop failure and the good years followed by bad ones led to the creation of effective storage facilities to even out these effects. These facilities store cereals to insure against crop failure and damage. The granaries...efficiently stored the produce of their wheat and cereal crops.
Storage has been around for many centuries and such facilities first appeared in abundance in the archaeological record in the late Bronze Age / early Iron Age. The societies of this time built off-the-floor granaries and underground storage pits. The granaries were used for short-term storage, whereas the underground pits were for long-term. These efficiently stored the produce of their wheat and cereal crops.
These early societies had recognised that the weather conditions and diseases were too unpredictable to just produce cereals for immediate use, and insured themselves and neighbouring communities against crop failure through storage. This tradition is still effective today. | |||||
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