Durum wheat or macaroni wheat (also spelled Durhum;Triticum durum or Triticum turgidum durum) is the only tetraploid species of wheat of commercial importance that is widely cultivated today. It was developed by artificial selection of the domesticated emmer wheat strains formerly grown in Central Europe and Near East around 7000 B.C., which developed a naked, free-threshing form. Durum in Latin means "hard", and the species is the hardest of all...
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Durum wheat or macaroni wheat (also spelled Durhum;Triticum durum or Triticum turgidum durum) is the only tetraploid species of wheat of commercial importance that is widely cultivated today. It was developed by artificial selection of the domesticated emmer wheat strains formerly grown in Central Europe and Near East around 7000 B.C., which developed a naked, free-threshing form. Durum in Latin means "hard", and the species is the hardest of all wheats. Its high protein and gluten content, as well as its strength, make durum good for special uses.
Durum wheat is a tetraploid wheat, having twenty-eight chromosomes, unlike hard red winter and hard red spring wheats, which are hexaploid and have forty-two chromosomes each.
Durum wheat originated through intergeneric hybridization and polyploidization involving two diploid grass species: T. urartu (2n = 2x = 14, AA genome) and a B-genome diploid related to Aegilops speltoides (2n = 2x = 14, SS genome) and is thus an allotetraploid...
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