Page:Farmers' Bulletin, No. 1280.djvu/6

4 sian, Red Winter, Russian, Tauranian, and Worlds Champion. Other names, such as Argentine, Bulgarian, Hungarian, Romanella, and Theiss, have been applied to introductions of wheat apparently identical with Turkey which are grown only experimentally.

Turkey has the general characteristics mentioned for wheats of the Crimean group. The grains are hard and of a dull dark-red color. The “beaks” (short beards on the outer chaff) are about ⅛ to ⅜ inch long (Fig. 2, A). The variety is comparatively winter hardy and drought resistant. It also is fairly resistant to bunt or stinking smut in the Pacific Northwest. Turkey as originally introduced and as now grown on farms contains a number of types. Some of these types, which have been separated, were the source of new varieties or improved strains of Turkey.

Turkey wheat was introduced into the United States by Mennonite immigrants from Russia about 1873. The original home of this wheat is in the portion of Russia just north and east of the Black Sea and north of the Caucasus Mountains. It was first grown in this country in Kansas and Nebraska. After the steel-roller mills were perfected, so that hard wheat could be properly ground, the growing of Turkey developed rapidly. To-day it is the most widely grown variety of wheat in the United States. More than 21,000,000 acres of Turkey were grown in 33 States of the Union in 1919. Of these, about 9,000,000 acres were grown in Kansas, 3,500,000 acres in Nebraska, and 3,200,000 acres in Oklahoma.

Turkey is best adapted to the areas shown in solid black on the accompanying map (Fig. 1). Previous to the development of the Kanred and Blackhull varieties, Turkey was the best yielding variety for those areas shown by the lighter dotted parts of the map. The districts of northeastern Kansas, northern Missouri, southern Towa, and central Illinois are those in which both hard and soft red winter wheats are grown. In these sections the value of Turkey in comparison with other varieties depends on the soil, elevation, rainfall, and seasonal or local conditions, but in general several varieties of soft winter wheat are nearly or quite equal to Turkey. North and west of the area of heavy production of hard red winter wheat, the Turkey is one of the best adapted varieties of winter wheat.

Turkey is a high-yielding variety in southeastern Idaho and the adjoining section of Utah. It is the best variety of wheat for the western part of the Columbia basin of Oregon and is superior to other varieties of winter wheat in the drier portions of eastern Washington. In this latter section the comparative resistance of Turkey to smut gives it an advantage over the varieties of club or soft red winter wheats commonly grown in those districts.