They're pretty small now. Dwarfed by even the smallest clod. Each of these is an individual wheat plant. a few of them can boast to be an inch tall, but only a few. Believe it or not, their origins are even more humble.
These are wheat kernels or grains or seeds. Whatever you call them, this is where wheat comes from. They're also what gets made into all kinds of food. When placed in the ground by the Grain Drill (remember the drill?) they can start to react instantly. With the right amount of sun on, and water in the soil they grow quite fast.
Ten days (more or less) after planting is when the first root emerged in this field. You can see it just emerging in the picture above. When it's first starting out the proto-plant will feed off of the starch contained in the wheat kernel. It has just enough to grow it's first roots and leaves. At first one root will head strait down and little hairlike roots pop out of it and start sucking up water. At roughly the same time the first stem will emerge and head strait up looking for it's first sunlight.
Twenty days in (thereabouts) this specific little kernel is doing well. With three larger roots covered with the little hair-like roots (what the dirt is sticking to) it pulls water up into the plant. The stem on this plant had just reached the surface and will soon turn green. None of the little wheat plants that I saw had leaves yet, but it won't be long. Once they grow the plant will be up and running, which is good because the starch is about spent. They're well on their way, and in not too long their seeds will end up in all kinds of products which you might eat or they might get tossed back into the ground to make yet another crop.
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