Triticum spelta

Ruibal-Mendieta, N.L., Rozenberg, R., Delacroix, D.L., Petitjean, G., Dekeyser, A., Baccelli, C., Marques, C., Delzenne, N.M., Meurens, M., Habib-Jiwan, J.L. and Quetin-Leclercq, J., Spelt Triticum spelta L.) and winter wheat (Triticum aestivum L.) wholemeals have similar sterol profiles, as determined by quantitative liquid chromatography and mass spectrometry analysis. J. Agric. Food Chem., 52,4802-4807 (2004). 

Hexaploid hulled wheat (Triticum spelta) that results from the hybridization of ancient wheats Einkorn and Emmer. It is still planted in small areas of Turkey and is considered a wild species. The use of these wheats is resurfacing due to their potential nutraceutical properties, even though they are low yielding compared with the current commercial types. 

The most common wheat species used in food production is ordinary wheat, also called bread wheat (Triticum aestivum). It is an allohexaploid (AABBDD), in which the genomes were obtained by spontaneous hybridization of T. turgidum (AABB) and Aegilops tauschii (DD) about 10,000 years ago (Vasil, 2007). Other grown wheat species are tetraploidal durum wheat T. durum, used in pasta production and small amounts of hexaploidal spelt T. spelta and tetraploidal T. polonicum (Curtis et al. 2002). 

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