Coming to America: Wheat sailed with Columbus

Until explorer Christopher Columbus landed in the West Indies, wheat was not known in the Americas, despite having first been planted around 8,000 BC.

Columbus was not the only explorer to introduce wheat in the New World. Spaniards brought wheat to Mexico in the early 1500s, where cultivation spread to the southwestern United States. Other explorers took grains of wheat to the eastern coast of the United States, where colonists —like President George Washington — grew it as one of their main cash crops.

Almost 350 years after Columbus landed, the first wheat crop was recorded in Kansas. In 1839, wheat was harvested at the Shawnee Methodist Mission, now Johnson County.

These early varieties of wheat, however, were not well suited to the Kansas climate. That wheat needed a milder climate – more like that of the eastern United States or Europe.

German Mennonites from the Ukraine brought the solution to Kansas with them — Turkey Red hard red winter wheat. They harvested Turkey Red in Marion County for the first time in 1874.

Turkey Red wheat became the wheat of choice. By 1919, more than 82 percent of Kansas wheat acres were planted to this variety. It remained the most popular variety until 1939. Today, around 50 percent of Kansas winter wheat varieties claim Turkey Red as part of their pedigree.

For more information on how Kansas became the top wheat state, check out “Exploring Plants: Kansas Crops” by the Kansas Foundation for Agriculture in the Classroom.