Did you know? Cereals

Where do they grow?

Cereal plants grow in all parts of the world, except very dry deserts and the ice-covered poles. Different climates grow different cereals - wheat and maize grow in mild climates, oats and barley love cooler, damper climates, rice needs waterlogged, boggy soils, and sorghum, millets and teff can grow in hot, dry tropical places.

About cereals

Cereal plants have to be planted every year and at the end of the summer, when they have produced ripe seeds, they die down. Like all seeds, cereals are very nutritious because they contain all the nutrients the embryo plant needs to start growing.

Cereal plants are members of the grass family; they usually have long, thin leaves. There are 8,000 different types of grass. They are wind-pollinated so don't have bright, colourful flowers. They have large seeds - even the wild ones.

Animals, but not people, can also eat the leaves of the grasses.

Environmental concerns

Farmers and scientists have improved these plants so that they produce more grain and less straw, and they often grow them in huge fields called plains. But the changes that have been made are now causing other problems, such as soil erosion, and the use of pesticides and weedkillers has affected the wildlife population and therefore the environment.

Interesting facts

Wheat and barley have been grown for 10,000 years. They were the first wild plants to be noticed by Stone Age man, who collected them to make food. They were man's first crops.

• Rice was first grown 5,500 years ago in Thailand and China.
• There are 7,000 different varieties.
• It is the main food for at least 1.6 billion people in the world. About 90 per cent of the world's rice is grown in Asia.

The people of Central America first grew maize about 5,000 years ago.

Bamboo is another useful grass plant, but it is not harvested as a grain crop.

Sugar is another member of the Graminaceae family which, like bamboo, has lots of important uses, but it's used for its canes (stems) rather than its grain.

Activity

Make a list of all the foods you eat which come from a grass plant. Don't forget you can include sugar!

Subheading - replace or remove

Paragraph text - replace or remove