10,000 years ago, between the Mediterranean and the Euphrates, the first lines of a long, very long history were written. That of the domestication of wheat by man. If the first crops were made from spontaneous crosses between wild grasses, man quickly perfected his practices – meaning in a few thousand years anyway – gradually favoring the emergence of more robust and more productive species. From then on, the history of humanity and that of wheat will remain inextricably linked, the mixtures of varieties being made through exchanges between civilizations. The Middle Ages saw the development of new methods of cultivation: we plowed, we enlarged the fields. In the 16th century, regions such as Beauce, Brie and Haute Auvergne were already specialized in the production of cereals. However, we had to wait until the 19th century to really talk about selection with the first genealogical work on wheat, carried out by Louis de Vilmorin, which gave rise to the first varieties of modern wheat: the Vilmorin varieties. You can’t be creative with all the plants… The 20th century and the post-war period marked a turning point in the cultivation of this cereal, which is made up of more than 30,000 genes and 42 chromosomes. More than ever, the objective is in terms of performance. In just 50 years, France has tripled its production by imposing single-variety crops.
Monovarietal crops today questioned by agroecology, as our guest explains. Hélène Fréville is a researcher at the Institute AGAP for genetic improvement and adaptation of tropical and Mediterranean plants. She presents her work on the performance of varietal mixtures in wheat cultivation, analyzed from the angle of genetics. His study was published in the journal New Phytologist on January 26.
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In the second part of the show, we take you to wash leeks, peel potatoes, cook rice or blanch apples, but beware, this is not cooking, it’s process engineering. It is Charles Cunault who makes us visit this food technology workshop and this happens at the IUT of Montpellier.
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