wheat history india

Growing of Wheat in India began very early in prehistoric times. This makes the origin of its cultivation as a matter of speculation. As per the historians records its center of origin is South West Asia. It is believed that Aryans brought wheat grains to India, since then it has been cultivated in India. After independence research on development of high yielding wheat varieties and improved management practices have been carried out in this country for the last several decades and many valuable varieties were bred and released for commercial cultivation. These varieties were tall and mainly suited to low management with low yield potential However, a turning point came in the history of wheat in 1963 with the introduction of dwarf, photo-insensitive high yielding Mexican wheat breeding materials developed by Nobel Laureate Dr. Norman E. Borlaug. In the year 1964, these varieties were tested at 155 locations under All India Co-ordinated Wheat Improvement Project, where Lerma Rojo and Sonara-64 out yielded the local tall varieties. As a result in 1965 both these varieties were released for general cultivation in wheat growing areas of the country. After sometime, these varieties were replaced by amber-seeded high yielding wheat varieties and since then so many dwarf varieties have been evolved for cultivation in different agro climatic zones.