GEORGIA IS COUNTRY OF ANCIENT AGRICULTURE

Abstract

Georgia is an agrarian country due to its physical-geographic conditions. Cereals of the subfamilies Pooideae (wheat, barley, rye) and Panicoideae (common millet, foxtail millet, rice), legumes (broad bean, pea, grass pea, cowpea, chickpea, lentil, lupin), oil and fiber plants (flax, hemp, cotton) represent a special piece of Georgian farmers’ material heritage. Georgia’s agriculture thrived for centuries based on its traditional crops.Archaeological, ethnographic, historical, and botanical evidence points to Georgia’s territory as a centre of origin and evolution of a number of crop plants. Fifteen of the species of the genus Triticum are recorded in Georgia and five of them are local endemics; these are: makha (T. macha), chelta zanduri (T. timopheevii), Colchic asli (T. palaeo-colchicum), Zhukovsky’s wheat (T. zhukovskyi), dika (T. carthlicum). Intraspecific diversity of varieties, forms and cultivars defined richness of Georgia’s agricultural traditions. Diverse climatic conditions of the country supported natural and artificial selection, which led to development of diversity of cultivated plants; the major portion of this diversity is now extinct and substituted by introduced crops, while local species and intraspecific genetic entities would provide unique basis for further selection of valuable properties of crop plants (high nutritional value, e.g. high contents of proteins and vitamins, high adaptation ability, resistance to diseases of various origin, etc.). Current paper describes such aspects of cereals, legumes, oil and fiber plants as their agricultural history, botanical characteristics, in-country distribution; folk traditions of their treatment; agricultural technologies; religious traditions related to cultivation; linguistics; uses in everyday life including folk medicine; local cuisine in various regions of the country.