Triticum araraticum (Araratian wild emmer or Armenian wild emmer) is a wildGlynis Jones, Soultana Valamoti and Michael Charles. October 2000. Early crop diversity: a "new" glume wheat from northern Greece. Vegetation History and Archaeobotany. Vol. 9, No. 3. tetraploid species of wheat. T. araraticum is one of the least studied wheat species in the world.E. D. Badaeva, R. L. Boguslavsky, N. S. Badaev and A. V. Zelenin. 1988. Intraspecific chromosomal polymorphism of Triticum araraticum (Poaceae) detected by C-banding technique. Plant Systematics and Evolution. Vol. 169, No. 1/2
Genealogy The T. araraticum species appears to have arisen from the natural hybridization of T. boeoticum and Aegilops speltoides.Migushova, E. F., Konarev, A. V. 1975. Genetic heterogenity of wild triticum dicoccoides from Iraq. J Agricult. Sciences 9. p. 18-19 (in Russian) T. araraticum is similar to the domestic T. timopheevii in several ways including physical appearance, cytoplasm type and DNA content.Jakubizner M. M. 1932. Wheats of Syria, Palestina, and Tranjordan, and their role in breeding and agronomy. WIR publ. p. 157-160 (in Russian) The relationship has led some taxonomists to classify T. araraticum as a subspecies of T. timopheevii. In July 1988 different lines of T. araraticum were studied using the C-banding method revealing that T. araraticum was of genome composition AAGG.
Geography The araraticum subspecies of T. araraticum grows primarily in Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Iran, Iraq and Turkey, while the kurdistanicum subspecies grows in Iraq and the nearby areas of Iran and Turkey.
In Armenia, the subspecies can be found in Voghjaberd and Vedi villages near capital Yerevan and the villages of Areni, Arpi and Aghavnadzor in Vayots Dzor Province.
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