Madhya Pradesh has been a centre for wheat cultivation from time immemorial. However, earlier most of this wheat was of the unirrigated durrum variety and was cultivated by preparing the soils during the monsoons to conserve as much of the rain moisture as possible. With changing times and the onset of irrigation this dryland wheat cultivation slowly went down and the modern hybrid high yielding varieties gained supremacy due to the subsidies provided in the costs of fertilisers and water. But of late these subsidies have been withdrawn and so irrigated wheat cultivation has become problematical. There is thus now a revival of the cultivation of the dryland wheat varieties. Even if they produce less nevertheless the economics of their cultivation is favourable compared to the high yielding varieties in areas where water and fertilisers are not readily available.