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Chaff
 
 
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Chaff ( or ) is the inedible, dry, scaly protective casings of the seeds of cereal grain, or similar fine, dry, scaly plant material such as scaly parts of flower
Flower

A flower, sometimes known as a bloom or blossom, is the reproduction structure found in flowering plants . The biological function of a flower is to mediate the union of male sperm with female ovum in order to produce seeds....
s, or finely chopped straw
Straw

Straw is an agricultural by-product, the dry wikt:stalk of a cereal plant, after the grain or seed has been removed. Straw makes up about half of the yield of cereal crops such as barley, oats, rice, rye and wheat....
. In agriculture
Agriculture

Agriculture refers to the production of food and goods through farming and forestry. Agriculture was the key development that led to the rise of civilization, with the animal husbandry of domestication animals and plants creating food surpluses that enabled the development of more Population density and Social stratification societies....
 chaff is used as livestock
Livestock

Livestock is the term used to refer to a domesticated animal intentionally reared in an agricultural setting to produce things such as food or fibre, or for its labour....
 fodder
Fodder

In agriculture, fodder or animal feed is any foodstuff that is used specifically to feed domesticated livestock, such as cattle, goats, sheep, horses, chickens and pigs....
, or is a waste material plough
Plough

The plough is a tool used in farming for initial cultivation of soil in preparation for sowing seed or planting. It has been a basic instrument for most of recorded history, and represents one of the major advances in agriculture....
ed into the soil
Soil

Soil is the naturally occurring, unconsolidated or loose covering on the Earth's surface. Soil is composed of particles of broken rock that have been altered by chemical and environmental processes including weathering and erosion....
 or burnt.

Grain chaff In grass
Grass

Grass is the common word that generally describes monocotyledonous green plants. The family Poaceae are the "true grasses" and include most plants grown as grains, for pasture, and for lawns ....
es (including cereal
Cereal

Cereals, or cereal grains, are mostly Poaceae cultivated for their edible brans or fruit seeds . Cereal grains are grown in greater quantities and provide more energy worldwide than any other type of crop; they are therefore staple foods....
s such as rice
Rice

Rice is a staple food for a large part of the world's human population, especially in tropical Latin America, and East Asia, South Asia and Southeast Asia, making it the second-most consumed cereal grain, after maize....
, barley
Barley

Barley is an annual plant cereal grain derived from the grass Hordeum vulgare. It serves as a major animal feed crop, with smaller amounts used for malting and in health food, as well as the making of alcoholic beverages beer and whisky....
, oat
Oat

The common oat is a species of Cereal Agriculture for its seed, which is known by the same name . While oats are suitable for human consumption as oatmeal and rolled oats, one of the most common uses is as livestock feed....
s and wheat
Wheat

Wheat , is a worldwide cultivated Poaceae from the Levant region of the Middle East. Globally, after maize, wheat is the second most-produced food among the cereal just above rice....
), the ripe seed is surrounded by thin, dry scaly bracts (called glumes, lemma
Lemma (botany)

Lemma, when used as a term in botany, refers to a part of the spikelet of grass . It is the lowermost of two chaff-like bracts enclosing the grass floret....
s and paleas), forming a dry husk
Husk

Husk in botany is the outer shell or coating of a seed....
, the chaff.

Domesticated types of grain have been bred to have chaff which is easily removed.






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Encyclopedia


Chaff ( or ) is the inedible, dry, scaly protective casings of the seeds of cereal grain, or similar fine, dry, scaly plant material such as scaly parts of flower
Flower

A flower, sometimes known as a bloom or blossom, is the reproduction structure found in flowering plants . The biological function of a flower is to mediate the union of male sperm with female ovum in order to produce seeds....
s, or finely chopped straw
Straw

Straw is an agricultural by-product, the dry wikt:stalk of a cereal plant, after the grain or seed has been removed. Straw makes up about half of the yield of cereal crops such as barley, oats, rice, rye and wheat....
. In agriculture
Agriculture

Agriculture refers to the production of food and goods through farming and forestry. Agriculture was the key development that led to the rise of civilization, with the animal husbandry of domestication animals and plants creating food surpluses that enabled the development of more Population density and Social stratification societies....
 chaff is used as livestock
Livestock

Livestock is the term used to refer to a domesticated animal intentionally reared in an agricultural setting to produce things such as food or fibre, or for its labour....
 fodder
Fodder

In agriculture, fodder or animal feed is any foodstuff that is used specifically to feed domesticated livestock, such as cattle, goats, sheep, horses, chickens and pigs....
, or is a waste material plough
Plough

The plough is a tool used in farming for initial cultivation of soil in preparation for sowing seed or planting. It has been a basic instrument for most of recorded history, and represents one of the major advances in agriculture....
ed into the soil
Soil

Soil is the naturally occurring, unconsolidated or loose covering on the Earth's surface. Soil is composed of particles of broken rock that have been altered by chemical and environmental processes including weathering and erosion....
 or burnt.

Etymology


"Chaff" comes from Middle English
Middle English

Middle English is the name given by historical linguistics to the diverse forms of the English language spoken between the Norman conquest of England of 1066 and about 1470, when the #Chancery Standard, a form of London-based English, began to become widespread, a process aided by the introduction of the printing press into England by William...
 chaf, from Old English
Old English language

Old English is an early form of the English language that was spoken and written in parts of what are now England and south-eastern Scotland between the mid-5th century and the mid-12th century....
 ceaf; related to Old High German
Old High German

The term Old High German refers to the earliest stage of the German language and it conventionally covers the period from around 500 to 1050. Coherent written texts do not appear until the second half of the 8th century, and some treat the period before 750 as 'prehistoric' and date the start of Old High German proper to 750 for this reason...
 cheva meaning husk.

Grain chaff

Usdaeinkorn1
In grass
Grass

Grass is the common word that generally describes monocotyledonous green plants. The family Poaceae are the "true grasses" and include most plants grown as grains, for pasture, and for lawns ....
es (including cereal
Cereal

Cereals, or cereal grains, are mostly Poaceae cultivated for their edible brans or fruit seeds . Cereal grains are grown in greater quantities and provide more energy worldwide than any other type of crop; they are therefore staple foods....
s such as rice
Rice

Rice is a staple food for a large part of the world's human population, especially in tropical Latin America, and East Asia, South Asia and Southeast Asia, making it the second-most consumed cereal grain, after maize....
, barley
Barley

Barley is an annual plant cereal grain derived from the grass Hordeum vulgare. It serves as a major animal feed crop, with smaller amounts used for malting and in health food, as well as the making of alcoholic beverages beer and whisky....
, oat
Oat

The common oat is a species of Cereal Agriculture for its seed, which is known by the same name . While oats are suitable for human consumption as oatmeal and rolled oats, one of the most common uses is as livestock feed....
s and wheat
Wheat

Wheat , is a worldwide cultivated Poaceae from the Levant region of the Middle East. Globally, after maize, wheat is the second most-produced food among the cereal just above rice....
), the ripe seed is surrounded by thin, dry scaly bracts (called glumes, lemma
Lemma (botany)

Lemma, when used as a term in botany, refers to a part of the spikelet of grass . It is the lowermost of two chaff-like bracts enclosing the grass floret....
s and paleas), forming a dry husk
Husk

Husk in botany is the outer shell or coating of a seed....
, the chaff.

Domesticated types of grain have been bred to have chaff which is easily removed. For example, in wild species of wheat
Wheat

Wheat , is a worldwide cultivated Poaceae from the Levant region of the Middle East. Globally, after maize, wheat is the second most-produced food among the cereal just above rice....
 and in the primitive domesticated einkorn, emmer
Emmer

Emmer wheat , also known as farro especially in Italy, is a low yielding, Awn wheat. It was one of the Neolithic founder crops in the Near East....
 and spelt
Spelt

Spelt is a hexaploid species of wheat. Spelt was an important staple in parts of Europe from the Bronze Age to medieval times; it now survives as a relict crop in Central Europe and has found a new market as a health food....
 wheats, the grains are hulled – the husks enclose each seed tightly. Before the grain can be used, the hulls must be removed by further processing such as milling or pounding. In contrast, in free-threshing (or naked) forms such as durum wheat and common wheat
Common wheat

Common wheat, Triticum aestivum, is a cultivated wheat species....
, the glumes are fragile, and on threshing the chaff easily breaks up, releasing the grains.

The process of loosening the chaff from the grain is called threshing
Threshing

Threshing is the process of loosening the edible part of cereal grain from the scaly, inedible chaff that surrounds it. It is the step in grain preparation before winnowing, which separates the loosened chaff from the grain....
, and separating the loose chaff from the grain is called winnowing – traditionally done by using the wind to blow the lighter chaff aside from grain tossed in the air.

Chaff should not be confused with bran
Bran

Bran is the hard outer layer of grain and consists of combined aleurone and pericarp. Along with cereal germ, it is an integral part of whole grains, and is often produced as a by-product of milling in the production of refined grains....
, which is finer scaly material forming part of the grain itself.

Straw chaff

Chaff is also made by chopping straw
Straw

Straw is an agricultural by-product, the dry wikt:stalk of a cereal plant, after the grain or seed has been removed. Straw makes up about half of the yield of cereal crops such as barley, oats, rice, rye and wheat....
 (or sometimes coarse hay
Hay

Hay is a generic term for Poaceae or legumes that have been cut, dried, and stored for use as animal fodder, particularly for grazing animals like cattle, horses, domestic goat, and sheep....
) into very short lengths, using a machine called a chaff cutter
Chaff cutter

File:'Myee' chaff cutter from The Powerhouse Museum.jpgFile:Reczna sieczkarnia.jpgFile:Almanach Chronique de Jersey 1892 Jones ironmonger.jpgChaff cutter ? a mechanical device for cutting straw or hay into small pieces ? before being mixed together with other forage and fed to horses and cattle....
. Like grain chaff this is used as animal feed, and is a way of turning coarse fodder into a form more palatable to livestock.

Botany

In botany
Botany

Botany, plant science, phytology, or plant biology is a branch of biology and is the Scientific method of plant life and development....
, chaff refers to the thin receptacular
List of plant morphology terms

Biologists that study plant morphology use a number of different terms to describe plant organs and parts that can be observed with the human eye using no more than a hand held magnifying lens....
 bracts of many species in the sunflower family Asteraceae
Asteraceae

The family Asteraceae or Compositae is the largest family of flowering plants, in terms of number of species.The name 'Asteraceae' is derived from the type genus Aster , while 'Compositae', an older but still valid name, means composite and refers to the characteristic inflorescence, a special type of pseudanthium found in o...
 and related families. They are modified scale-like leaves
Leaves

Leaves are an Iceland five-piece alternative rock band who formed in 2001. They came to prominence in 2002 with their debut album, Breathe, drawing comparisons to groups such as Coldplay and Doves....
 surrounding single florets in the flower-head.

Metaphor

Chaff as a waste product from grain processing leads to a metaphor
Metaphor

Metaphor is language that directly compares seemingly unrelated subjects. It is a figure of speech that compares two or more things without using the words "like" or "as." More generally, a metaphor describes a first subject as being or equal to a second object in some way....
ical use of the term, to refer to something seen as worthless. This is most commonly in the expression "to separate the wheat from the chaff" from Matthew 3., where it means to separate things of value from things of no value. Another example is in Psalm 1 of the Bible
Bible

The Bible is the central religious text of Judaism and Christianity. The exact Books of the Bible is dependent on the religious traditions of specific denominations....
, which says: "Not so the wicked! They are like chaff that the wind blows away".

See also

  • Bran
    Bran

    Bran is the hard outer layer of grain and consists of combined aleurone and pericarp. Along with cereal germ, it is an integral part of whole grains, and is often produced as a by-product of milling in the production of refined grains....
  • Biomass
    Biomass

    Biomass, as a renewable energy source, refers to living and recently dead biological material that can be used as fuel or for industrial production....
  • Combine harvester
    Combine harvester

    The combine harvester, or simply combine, also known as a thresher is a machine that combines the tasks of harvesting, threshing, and cleaning cereal crops....
  • Threshing
    Threshing

    Threshing is the process of loosening the edible part of cereal grain from the scaly, inedible chaff that surrounds it. It is the step in grain preparation before winnowing, which separates the loosened chaff from the grain....
  • Threshing machine
    Threshing machine

    The thrashing machine, or, in modern spelling, threshing machine , was a machine first invented by Scotland mechanical engineer Andrew Meikle for use in agriculture....
  • Winnowing