Wheat Belt

What do the black and red dots represent, respectively? Why are the cities included?

Answers:

black dots: spring wheat (planted in the Spring and harvested late in the Fall of the same year) -- the colder winters in the northern Great Plains would in most years kill the Fall-planted winter wheat
red dots: winter wheat (planted in the Fall of one year in the southern Great Plains, where the winters are milder, and harvested early the next Fall)
these cities were once important wheat milling centers. In the late-19th and early-20th centuries Minneapolis was the milling capital of the world and General Mills is still headquartered in Minneapolis although it does not do milling here any more.
hard wheat, which is used for breads, and soft wheat, preferred for other bakeries goods, such as cookies and pastries, can both be grown as Spring or Winter wheat.

Created by Ingolf Vogeler on 30 April 1996; last revised on 07 December 2010.