CWC Video 1 Script

Many of our favorite foods, like bagels, pizza, and tortillas, are made from wheat. Most California farmers grow a kind of wheat called winter wheat. This wheat is planted in the fall or winter and harvested in the spring or summer. 

Let’s go through the steps in which wheat grows: from planting to harvest.

First, the farmer prepares the soil late in the summer. He or she spends many hours on a tractor turning the soil and breaking it into fine particles. At last the soil is ready, the weather is right, and it is time to plant. The farmer puts the seed in the ground, using a machine called a grain drill. 

After planting, a shoot grows up through the soil. The moisture in the soil and sunlight is what causes the wheat plant to start growing. The plant grows tall and develops green leaves. Each plant grows by producing more leaves and new stalks from the base of the plant. The new stalks are called “tillers.” In the spring, the warm moist days make the wheat plants grow quickly. Each tiller can form another head of wheat. Most varieties of wheat grow between two and four feet tall.

As the weather turns warmer, the wheat turns from green to tan and finally to a golden color that tells the farmer it is time for harvest. To check that the wheat is ripe, farmers examine the wheat to see if it’s dry enough. The wheat can be harvested by hand, but many farmers use combine harvesters when it’s time to harvest. After harvest and milling, the wheat flour will be used to make all of our favorite foods.