This article is about a commonly cultivated crop plant. Despite its name, buckwheat is not closely related to wheat. It is japanese buckwheat a cereal, nor is it even a member of the grass family.
The name “buckwheat” or “beech wheat” comes from its triangular seeds, which resemble the much larger seeds of the beech nut from the beech tree, and the fact that it is used like wheat. The wild ancestor of common buckwheat is F. Yunnan, a southwestern province of China. The wild ancestor of tartary buckwheat is F.
Common buckwheat was domesticated and first cultivated in inland Southeast Asia, possibly around 6000 BCE, and from there spread to Central Asia and Tibet, and then to the Middle East and Europe. Domestication most likely took place in the western Yunnan region of China. The oldest remains found in China so far date to circa 2600 BCE, while buckwheat pollen found in Japan dates from as early as 4000 BCE. It is the world’s highest-elevation domesticate, being cultivated in Yunnan on the edge of the Tibetan Plateau or on the plateau itself.
Buckwheat was one of the earliest crops introduced by Europeans to North America. In hot climates buckwheat can be grown only by sowing late in the season, so that it blooms in cooler weather. The buckwheat plant has a branching root system with a primary taproot that reaches deeply into moist soil. Buckwheat is raised for grain where only a brief time is available for growth, either because the buckwheat is an early or a second crop in the season, or because the total growing season is limited.