Necessity of attention to the improvement, cultivation area and production of durum wheat in the cold drylands regions of Iran

In some references, the origin and emergence of durum wheat in the western regions of Iran has been mentioned. Its cultivated area in Iran is about 250-400 thousand hectares, presently. Unfortunately, in Iran it not paid much attention to durum wheat in comparison with some neighbor countries, such as Turkey, which is about 50% of the area under durum wheat cultivation id in the cold regions. Durum breeding researches have been started in Dryland Agricultural Research Institute (DARI) during the growing season of 1974-75 and the results indicated that there is a suitable potential in the field of adaptation to drought, resistance to cold and diseases etc. in the durum breeding populations. Considering that the amount of macaroni protein and similar products extracted from durum wheat is more than rice and its calorie and mineral content is approximately equal to rice, therefore, the development of the durum wheat cultivated area under drylands, replace and change the pattern of consumption of macaroni instead of rice, it will save on economical, nutritional and health benefits of nutrition for the population, and would be optimum and optimal use of the capacity of drylands in the cold regions of the Iran.