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 (e.g. General Mills is headquartered in Minneapolis.)

Visit a wheat farm.

Created by Ingolf Vogeler on 30 April 1996; last revised on 07 March 2005.