Wheat evolution

Summary

Wheat is a familiar crop and flour is a familiar food (or starting material).

The evolution of wheat from wild grasses demonstrates the dramatic effect of both natural and directed evolution on the structure of a crop plant and the chemical makeup of the product harvested from it.

These activities illustrate the changes to both the structure and the chemistry of the wheat plant.

They include materials that can be printed out for illustrative purposes and practical activities that can be run as demonstrations or hands-on activities.

Wheat evolution activities

Background

Wheat evolution
Bread making quality
Types of flour
Gluten/gliadin/glutenin

Dough washing
Dough rising
SDS test for protein quality

Wheat evolution activities (PDF 720KB)

Contact

Tristan Maclean, Inspiring Young Scientists Co-ordinator, Norwich Research Park
tristan.maclean@bbsrc.ac.uk
tel: 01603 450970