Why did wheat become a major crop in North America?

By Chelsie Vandaveer

September 11, 2001

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In 1763, Catherine the Great invited Western Europeans to settle in Russia. Her invitation offered a stable home to the peoples of war-torn Germany, transportation to Russia, land ownership, religious freedom, and political autonomy. Catherine knew that to build Russia into a world power, it needed a solid agricultural base. Many of the German peasants who took Catherine up on her offer were Mennonites searching for a home where they could practice their religious beliefs.

The Mennonites had a difficult task ahead, but they carved farmland out of grasslands and swamps, built villages, and improved the local variety of wheat.
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A close view of a wheat plant
Jason Edwards/National Geographic Image Collection
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By the 1800's, Russia became the "bread basket" of the world. But times change and Russians became hostile toward the foreigners that farmed and held large tracts of land. To top it all off, these Mennonites did not serve in the military. Czar Alexander II decided to revoke the privileges granted by Catherine. All the men of his country would serve in the military, conscripted whether they believed in war or not. (The Mennonites had no problem with serving their country, just not in the military.)

In the 1870's, many of the Mennonites left Russia for the U.S. and Canada to escape persecution. In their new homeland, they settled in areas much like the plains of Russia—Nebraska, Kansas, the Dakotas, and central Canada. And they brought with them Turkey red wheat; the seeds and know-how for an agricultural revolution in America.

Wheat was not grown much in the Americas before the late 1800's. European varieties had not done well and wheat was mostly grown as a "hobby" plant. But the seeds brought over by the Mennonites provided the genetic stock for our modern varieties of wheat.

To view some beautiful photographs of fields of wheat, click on the link:

http://linnaeus.nrm.se/flora/mono/poa/triti/tritaes.html