Gayle Volk and Patrick Byrne The purpose of this chapter is to explain how wheat originated in the Fertile Crescent of the Middle East, and how knowledge of wheat’s ancestors informs strategies for continued improvement of the cultivated crop. Wheat is an example of crop evolution through hybridization of wild species, which has led to a bottleneck in genetic diversity. Through access to collections of wild relatives, wheat scientists have helped overcome that bottleneck.
Case Study: Wheat Domestication and Breeding
