Talk:Wheat/GA1

GA Review

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

---

Article (edit | visual edit | history) · Article talk (edit | history) · Watch

Reviewer: KoA (talk · contribs) 02:06, 22 December 2023 (UTC)

Many thanks. Away from desk during hols so editing is tricky, but we nay be able to sort much of this on the way. Chiswick Chap (talk) 07:02, 22 December 2023 (UTC)

KoA - all done to date. Hope you're pleased with the result! Chiswick Chap (talk) 15:17, 23 December 2023 (UTC)

Comments

GA criteria check:

1. Overall good for prose, but one issue is initial section readability needed for GA status mentioned below.
2. Copyvio check good: Low similarity (6.5%)[1]
3. Good breadth of coverage for GA status, a few potential key missing areas covered in Minor Edits below.
4. Neutral point of view throughout and uses WP:MEDRS sourcing where needed.
5. Stable.
6. Good use of images and licensing looks good except maybe one (in minor edits).

Major needs

• Had this one sitting in my hard drive for awhile, finally had time to wrap it up. Overall a good GA candidate that I think is very close, but just needs a few tweaks or reorganizing to better deal with the large amount of content. The main issue I run into is initial readability where the article can start off too dense with the Evolution section. It's just technical by nature, so I don't have any suggestions for major improvements on the section itself, but that section could cause readers from a broad audience to trail off quickly. Suggestions below for that and some broader coverage needs, but addressing those major points (with hopefully minimal edits) would put this on a very solid GA footing.
  • Reordered, see below.

• The first mention of glumes, spiklets, etc. reminds me that most readers wouldn’t know basic wheat anatomy or related terminology, and I’d likely get lost in terminology if I was a non-expert reader. Related to this, the Evolution section may be a bit too much of a deep-dive for readers to start off with who may be wanting more basic questions answered like “What is wheat and what does it look like?”
  • To address that, I wonder if it would be feasible to pull Physiology out of the Agronomy section and expand it into its own top-level Description section at the start of the article? I’m picturing something similar to Maize#Structure_and_physiology that could help here to have more pictures of plant structures. That would give a primer for when readers get down to the Crop Development section later.
    • Done.

• The current image in the Physiology section is ok for a potential description section, though hard to sort through. Does an unlicensed/available image exist that’s more clearly labeled similar to this over at the maize article? Page 4 here is often used in classroom material for vegetative stage structure, tillers, etc., and page 43 has the other main structures. If there are images of those + the flag leaf, this article would be very solid for key images.
  • We don't seem to have those on Commons. The Description/ Physiology section is sufficiently illustrated and the text now next to the image brings out the key points.

• Consider having the History section be first or second along with the possible Description section. Both of those seem like they’d give a better primer for readers before going into the Evolution section.
  • Done.

• It's touched on in a few places, but I don't get a clear walkthrough of how wheat is actually farmed or cultivated for general readers. See if you can get a bit more specifically about what farmers do for planting, water needs, harvest, and byproduct production such as straw, etc. In some cases it reads as pre-supposed I already know about about the growing process, such as when water use is mentioned occasionally in the article. A cultivation section or subsection for focus may be useful here for adding new content or organizing from elsewhere. It doesn't have to be as expansive as Maize#Cultivation, but that does give a good framework.
  • Added.

Minor suggestions

Just minor edits here that would help with clarity or cover key topics I didn’t see mentioned.

• For the Crop Development section, see if you can get an image of the Feeke’s or Zadok’s scale to show plant development over time.
  • Added.

• In the phylogeny section, it many not be clear to readers what is meant by AA notation for Einkorn wheat (or AABB) later on for wild emmer, so it would help to walk readers through that a bit more. The other notations, such as for diploid, 2N, etc. look straightforward enough though.
  • Glossed some more.

• Use the full name for Triticum at first mention in the body rather than abbreviation.
  • Done.

• At the main Taxonomy header, I think it’s good to deal with the much more complicated subject Taxonomy of wheat in the separate article as currently done, but it would be worth summarizing the taxonomy article/lead under this main header just reiterating there is a lot of diversity with a lot of confusion in naming. That way readers are aware of it, but it doesn’t bog down the article while those interested by that know to follow the link.
  • Done.

• The wheat berry article has a further information template, but add brief mention of what this is in the Food value and uses section.
  • Nothing usable from there, already more detail here; moved link inline.

• Farming systems has some overlap with Agronomy’s Farming techniques section, and it seems like it might be better to merge into the latter. This would also be a good place to mention the Green Revolution and Norman Borlaug’s overall system work in wheat Norman_Borlaug#Wheat_research_in_Mexico, though some of that, especially semi-dwarf wheat advances, would have more of a home in the breeding section.
  • Merged, and mentioned.

• according to the new protein quality method (DIAAS) promoted by the Food and Agriculture Organization “New” here makes is sound like there’s something of note that needs to be expanded upon here (were old methods unreliable?). If it’s just the currently accepted methodology without much need to delve into other measurements, I’d strike this part of the sentence.
  • Edited.

• Historical factors section – Some sentences appear to be unsourced in the 2nd and 3rd paragraphs at a glance, though maybe they are multi-sentence citations I missed.
  • Edited.

• In 2014, the most productive crop yields for wheat were in Ireland. . . This seems to be sourced just to a database and is repeated twice in the article. It would be better to find written sources that state what area has the highest yields per hectare currently if that metric is going to be included.
  • Cut.

• The Geographical variation section seems to be redundant with previous text in places, especially the bit about Ireland’s production again. This may be better integrated into the Global section above, and looks like the whole section could be updated for 2022 since List_of_countries_by_wheat_exports uses 2022 numbers now.
  • Removed as doing same job as Global but less well.

• Check the table at the top of the Global section, something through off for template formatting.
  • Fixed.

• Double check the licensing on this image. Seems like an odd case at least that I'm not 100% sure of.
  • Done, it's fine as pre-2017 from that site.

• In the disease section, ergot warrants mention probably along with a link to Ergotism and brief mention about wheat susceptibility to ergot compared to other small grains (e.g., rye being a more common source of ergot poisoning).
  • Added.

• Animal pests - Double check for an additional source or two on what common insect/mite pests are. A couple that come to mind not mentioned are wheat stem sawfly, Hessian fly, aphids, or wheat curl mite.[2] This isn't FA, so it doesn't need to be exhaustive though. KoA (talk) 03:38, 22 December 2023 (UTC)
  • Added.

• Summary Good improvements! We should be good to go with this. KoA (talk) 16:50, 23 December 2023 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.