Talk:Cereal/GA1

Substantial missing content

Sorry to be a we blanket but: I saw some of the edits happening in the GA review, and I am concerned that there are some serious gaps related to important themes in any crop article (including environmental issues, discussion of the size scale and dimension of the industry, and the academic investment in developing better methods for cultivation in the face of growing population AND environmental pressures like climate change and biodiversity loss). For example, the connection of grain cultivation with soil erosion and other environmental impacts, its heavy reliance on nitrogen fertilizers, and coverage of the grain trade as an important part of the commodities market, not to mention emerging trends in their production and consumption such as trying to identify cereals that allow for permaculture, such as kernza.

Environment, sustainability: added section - tillage, irrigation, fertilizer, greenhouse gases, pesticides; mitigation with no-till, perennials like kernza, etc.

Size, commodities, trade: are mentioned and boldly illustrated.

Moreover, several of the sections have some questionable gaps -- such as the uses section which oversimplifies a number of things: including, from a quick read, the flour and alcohol sections which are missing some substantial major themes, covered in the main articles (such as pastas or non-barley grains in alcohol production and beer and other fermentation traditions using different grains in other parts of the world -- from whiskeys, to rice wines, etc). Additionally, the nutrition section is basically non-existent.

Pasta: mentioned.

Rice wine, etc: mentioned some.

Nutrition: promoted to chapter, sections on whole-grain and amino acid balance.

I usually am not so picky about GA articles, but this kind of top-level article, needs top-level treatment of scope, even if we aren't holding it up to a FA quality -- the gaps are kindof more substantial than usually happens with GAs, Sadads (talk) 11:35, 8 February 2024 (UTC)

Thanks, will adjust article now. Chiswick Chap (talk) 11:53, 8 February 2024 (UTC)

Also reading over it as well: this has a very heavy Meaditerannean/North American bias in how its handling some topics: Rice has been the main subsistence food for good chunks of the world for millennia, but most of the examples favor wheat and barley -- similarly corn has become a substitute for a number of different uses of cereals in the last decade thanks to strategic investment by the US and Brazilian government (among other issues). Sadads (talk) 12:25, 8 February 2024 (UTC)

Bias: Domestication-worldwide; Nutrition-South Indian, maize, tofu, not US/EU; Planting-temperate and tropical; Harvesting-both developed and developing; Storage-Zambia, Israel; Consumption-rice, porridge, etc; Foods-Mexico, Europe, Asia; Production-worldwide.

Rice, maize, barley, and rye are all mentioned in multiple contexts; numerous other cereals are described.

@Sadads: Thank you much for looking over the article and making suggestions. I am reviewing the new additions and correction now. Bruxton (talk) 15:25, 8 February 2024 (UTC)

Thanks @Chiswick Chap for adding citations to some of the stuff I added earlier -- I knew there were some gaps that I wanted to make sure we filled.

I only feel like the trade and economy section at the bottom is the only part that feels a bit deficient for me at the moment. I am going to make a pass at writing some content with or without citations (as I have time) in the next day or two, and we can work through that as well. Sadads (talk) 16:15, 9 February 2024 (UTC)

Respectfully, the requirement at GA is for "the main points", and the article makes it quite clear that the cereal trade is economically important, indeed giving precise figures for its scale. This is certainly sufficient for GAN. The article is fully-cited at the moment, and a GAN is of course under way, so it is inappropriate to add uncited content, especially intentionally. To save going around the buoy on this one again, I'll add a bit more cited content to the trade/economy section. Chiswick Chap (talk) 09:30, 10 February 2024 (UTC)

OK, I've extended and further illustrated and cited the Production and Trade sections, and provided "further" links; these sections now constitute a substantial portion of the article. Any more would clearly be WP:UNDUE in this context. Chiswick Chap (talk) 10:44, 10 February 2024 (UTC)

Hey, so the thing that was missing for me is the outsized impact of the trade and industry on food security and some of these other factors -- I think between the edits we each made we are good.

On the uncited content, I have been hacking on this in short spurts between other activities in the last few days, so didn't have the space for doing all the research all at once -- trying to grab citations where I have them readily on hand.

I am feeling really confident about the scope of the content now for the GA level, Sadads (talk) 13:32, 10 February 2024 (UTC)

Many thanks. Chiswick Chap (talk) 13:33, 10 February 2024 (UTC)

Lead

The facts in the lead are all cited in the body. Have one question below.

Y "ground to flour" just checking if "to" is the what you wanted here

Yes, I mean something like "the grain can be ground down using a pair of millstones from big lumps to small particles of flour".

Spelling

Y Lead, "A cereal is a grass cultivated for its edible grain." consider losing the "A" so that it is just Cereal. What do you think?

No, the article is required by the sense.

Y Origins section "down for long periods of time," Seems redundant so maybe just "long periods"

Removed per item below.

Y Origins "Early villages show evidence of processing of grains" might read funny.. what do you think?

Removed, the next sentence is enough.

Y Origins section "the term cereal is derived from Latin cerealis" misspelling

'cerealis' is the genitive.

Y Modern section "During the second half of the 20th century there was a significant increase" consider comma after century. Also consider a link to 20th century.

Added. Link is not really necessary.

Y Modern "crops tend to have low quality proteins" consider hyphen for low-quality

Done.

Y Botanical " A cereal grain is botanically a caryopsis" consider losing the "A" I am not sure about it.

No, it's correct.

Y Nutritional "Vegetarian cultures, in order to get a balanced diet," Consider removing "in order" as the words seems to be extra

Done.

Y Cultivation "are called cool season cereals" consider hyphen for cool-season

Done.

Y Cultivation "Warm season cereals, in contrast" consider hyphen for Warm-season

Done.

Y Cultivation Same for "Cool season cereals can be grown in highlands" Cool-season

Done.

Y Planting "Other warm climate cereals" consider hyphen

Not required.

Y Harvesting "developed countries is by combine harvester" consider adding by "a" combine

Not required.

Y Preprocessing and storage "spoilt by mould fungi" I was unfamiliar with both spoilt and mould- are these British english?

Yes.

Y Chart " and said to resemble meat texture more than others." consider "are" said to

Added.

Y "while the production of oats and rye have drastically" probably "has" works better

Done.

Y "Teff, an ancient grain that is a staple in Ethiopia" consider Teff "is" an ancient.. without comma after Teff.

No, the grammar is 'Other cereals ... include ... teff, an ancient grain... (so I've changed to lower case).

Citations

Y There is a high Earwig score and I am unable to determine who copied who. Can you help? Bruxton (talk) 05:21, 7 February 2024 (UTC)

Hmm, what a tangle. The "Cargo Handbook" has surely copied Wikipedia without attribution; the page is a short mostly chatty commercial account with a small amount of suddenly-more-technical encyclopedia-like text which remarkably happens to match bits of our article, so I'd not worry about that.

The NCBI article is similarly a very curious hotchpotch; for example, it says The first cereal grains were domesticated about 12,000 years ago by ancient farming communities in the Fertile Crescent region. Emmer wheat, einkorn wheat, and barley were three of the so-called Neolithic founder crops in the development of agriculture. Maize, wheat and rice together accounted for 87% of all grain production worldwide, (yes, sentence ends with a comma, looks like a cut-and-paste...). Notice that it jumps straight from the Neolithic to 2012 (without giving the year) in the same paragraph! This too suggests they copied fragments from us, as we have the production figures under Production and the Neolithic under History, as you'd expect. The NCBI article came out in July 2015, and sure enough the June 2015 Wikipedia article already contains the text The warm-season cereals are grown in tropical lowlands year-round and in temperate climates during the frost-free season. Rice is commonly grown in flooded fields, though some strains are grown on dry land. Other warm climate cereals, such as sorghum, are adapted to arid conditions., confirming that NCBI too copied from us. Chiswick Chap (talk) 08:55, 7 February 2024 (UTC)

Thanks for the explanation. I will continue the review today. Bruxton (talk) 14:41, 7 February 2024 (UTC)

Y In origins I cannot confirm the information in the citation: "Cereals including barley, emmer, and einkorn were domesticated some 8,000 years ago in the Fertile Crescent"

Replaced ref.

Y Origins How reliable is the source for paragraph four, Source

Doubtful. Removed paragraph, the key facts are in the next paragraph anyway.

Y Modern section - citations check out

Y Botanical - AGF offline sources

Y Nutritional - Citation 22 page 301 does not seem to cover all of the information in the paragraph. for instance I cannot find Pakistan and North India in the source

Removed. An accruftisement, presumably. The list is certainly sufficient without it.

Y Cultivation - citations check out

Noted.

Y Planting section - Paragraphs 2 and 3 are an exact copy of the source in citation 24 (this information was not added by you) Source So citation 31 is incorrect as well.

Paraphrased.

Y Growth

Noted.

Y Harvesting Citation 34 may not be RS

It's a properly published RS, sponsored by the National Academy of Engineering too.

Y Preprocessing and storage I cannot find anything about mould in the source 24.

Added a ref and taken the opportunity to mention some moulds too.

Y Direct consumption In the first sentence I cannot find "simmering water" in the source, I only see that they rinse and boil

Edited.

Y Flour-based foods First paragraph may not be supported by the two citations. I have trouble finding the facts in the paragraph in the sources. (I think this is previous work not by you}

Added refs.

Y Flour-based foods citation 41 may not support the 3rd paragraph of the section.

Removed. It was presumably once for the first paragraph, but we have better sources for that.

Y Flour-based foods Citation 42 has no page numbers

Removed. There was a chapter URL with page, but source was antique.

Y Alcohol - citations appear correct

Noted.

Y Production statistics unable to access the sources used

Noted.

Y New sections under: Effects on the environment. Good additions and sources which I could access line up.