A hand holds a bunch of wheat stalks, with ears, of the variety Red Fife.

For more than 40 years, one wheat variety dominated the Canadian prairies. Red Fife — the red-seeded wheat grown by David Fife, a Scottish immigrant — gave the highest yields of the best quality. It almost didn’t happen, if you believe the stories. And then, having set the standard, Red Fife was e...

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Vavilov’s desk, on which is an inkstand and a map showing one of his plant collecting missions

This short episode fails to do justice to the man who, more than anyone, first grasped the importance of knowing where and how wheat arose. It does, however, explain why Vavilov wanted to collect the building material of future food security, for wheat and many other crops. In more than 60 countri...

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Very late, which is entirely understandable as I have very little of substance to report. We were away for almost the entire month having fun and relaxing, as it should be.

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Artwork from a cereal packet of Organic Kamut Flakes with raisins, showing a supposed Egyptian person holding a bowl of breakfast cereal

Kamut® is a modern wheat — registered and trademarked in 1990 — with an ancient lineage. The word is ancient Egyptian, and the hieroglyphics may literally mean “Soul of the Earth”. More prosaically, “bread”. The story of its discovery and growing popularity says a lot about our hunger for stories....

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Finally, last Sunday, I set up the new friction shifters on the downtube of my old Raleigh bicycle. It’s a long story, with a happyish ending.

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