Micro-Season: “The Time For Wheat” (2023)

We have entered the micro-season of “The Time for Wheat.” This is the third micro-season of the mini-season of Grain Full. All the micro-seasons within Grain Full are:

• The Silk Worm Awakes and Eats the Mulberry (May 21 – May 25)
• The Safflower Blossoms (May 26 – May 30)
• The Time for Wheat (May 31 – Jun 04)

The micro-seasons were established in 1685 by Japanese astronomer Shibukawa Shunkai. While they are specific to Japan, they can be helpful to people all over the world. No matter where you live, you can use these seasons as a starting point for your own exploration of the natural world.

To celebrate this season we will learn about the history of wheat and read haiku by Basho, Issa, Reichhold, and Kerouac.

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What is “Wheat”

Wheat is the common name for a type of grass in the Poaceae family of plants.  Common Wheat (Triticum aestivum) is the most widely grown type of wheat crop and makes up about 95% of global production. 

Wheat is classified as a cereal product.  A cereal is “any grass cultivated for the edible components of its grain”.⁽²⁾  Other grains that fall within the cereal classification are rice, wheat, rye, oats, barley, millet, and maize (corn).

The History of Wheat

Wheat was one of the first crops to be domesticated by humans.  It is estimated that domestication began 10,000 years ago in the Western Asia and Nothern Africa region known as the Fertile Crescent. 

After the initial domestication, wheat started spreading westward. With the assistance of humans, cultivated wheat reached Greece around 6500 BCE and Germany by 5000 BCE. By 3000 BCE, wheat had extended its reach to England and Scandinavia.

Recent archaeological findings by Polish and Armenian scientists provide further evidence supporting the theory of wheat migrations. The scientists are currently conducting excavations in the ancient city of Metsamor, which was constructed around 4,000 BCE and is situated approximately 20 miles outside the capital of Armenia. During their excavation, they discovered the remains of a large bakery and wheat storage facility, estimated to have held around 7,000 pounds of wheat. The presence of this substantial storage facility indicates that the bakery was once utilized for the mass production of bread and other wheat-based products. Professor Kryzstztof Jakubiak, one of the project’s leading researchers, highlighted in a press release that the Metsamor bakery now stands as one of the oldest bakeries discovered in the southern and eastern Caucasus regions.⁽³⁾

Wheat in Japan

Wheat arrived in Japan around 1000 BCE and became a staple crop in the Japanese about 2000 years ago. 

It is estimated that the Japanese eat about  6.4 million tons of wheat a year, making Japan one of the world’s leading consumers of wheat.  The Japanese produce about 8% of their wheat domestically and import the rest.⁽⁴⁾

Wheat in the United States

Wheat wasn’t introduced to the Americas until the 16th century and was first planted in the United States as a hobby crop in 1777. By the mid-1800s, farms in Kansas and Nebraska were growing wheat as a commercial crop.  Now, wheat is grown in 42 of the 50 states and is the highest-produced grain in the county.^(5,6)

Types of Wheat

While there are many different variations of wheat, it is usually separated into two categories based on its growing season: Spring Wheat and Winter Wheat.

Spring Wheat is wheat that is planted in early spring and harvested in the late summer. Winter Wheat is wheat that is planted in winter and harvested in early summer. In this micro-season, we are welcoming the arrival of a winter wheat crop.

In last year’s post, we talked about the six major classes of wheat that are divided according to growth habitats (winter wheat or spring wheat), grain color, and texture.  Here’s the link to that post. 

Seasonal Haiku

According to the World Kigo Database Triticum aestivum, or common wheat, is also known as “small mugi” or komugi.  The WKD identifies “wheat” as an early summer kigo, along with “ears of Mugi”, “barley”, “sparrow oats”, and “rye”.

In The Five Hundred Essential Japanese Season Words as selected by Kenkichi Yamamoto, “water oats” and “summer grasses” are similar summer kigo. In Jane Reichhold’s A Dictionary of Haiku, she lists “grains” as a summer kigo. 

The World Kigo Database also adds this little bit of information that may cause some confusion to the casual haiku reader. “The time when barley/wheat is ripe for harvest is called “autumn”, in reference to the time when rice is ripe for harvest.”  This can be confusing since we also recognize “autumn” as the season after summer, and not necessarily just when grains are ready to harvest.

Now, with all these grains in mind, let’s read some haiku. 

Basho

green grain crackers
the wheat ears come out of
veggie cookies 
(translated by Jane Reichhold)

only ears of wheat
to cling to as I pause
for a parting word 
(translated by Sam Hamill) 

day by day
the barley reddens toward ripeness: 
singing skylarks. 
(translated by David Landis Barnhill)

Issa

the grass and wheat
trembling...
sunlight stretches on
(translated by David G. Lanoue)

dawn--
from atop the wheat
"Cuckoo!"
(translated by David G. Lanoue)

a vast wheat field
dotted with blooming
peonies
(translated by David G. Lanoue)

Jane Reichhold

bearded grasses
the same age
as the August sun

Jack Kerouac

Grain elevators, waiting
   For the road
To approach them

Barley soup in Scotland
   In November–
Misery everywhere

This last haiku is set in the season of Autumn instead of Summer.  However, I really liked it and wanted to include it in this week’s selection. 

Haiku Invitation

This week’s haiku invitation is to write a haiku or senryu that references early summer grains or grasses that are either growing wild or found in your food. 

Share your haiku in the comments below, or post on your own page and link back to this post. I can’t wait to read what you write!  

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References

1. “Common Wheat”; Wikipedia
2. “Cereal”; Wikipedia
3. Benzine, Vittoria. “Archaeologists Have Found a 3,000-Year-Old Bakery in Armenia, After Realizing a Layer of Ash Was Actually Wheat Flour.” ArtNet.com.
4. “The secret of ramen”; Nishiyama Seimen Co., Ltd
5. Moyer, Karyn. “Wheat First Planted in 1777 as Hobby Crop”. AgHires.com
6. Brog, Shayna. “Wheat: History of Wheat”. Storymaps.arcgis.com

Basho’s haiku was retrieved from Matsuo Bashō’s haiku poems in romanized Japanese with English translations. Issa’s haiku was retrieved from David G. Lanoue’s HaikuGuy.com. Jack Kerouac’s haiku were retrieved from Book of Haikus. Jane Reichhold’s haiku was retrieved from A Dictionary of Haiku.