Corn, one of the world’s most valuable crop with over 900 billion people consuming it daily.
But did you know that the ears of Corn used to be 2 inches (5.08 cm) tall!
Long before there was Corn there was Teosinte, which is anyone of the 4 stout grasses that belongs to the genus Zea and Poaceae family.
Teosinte is thought to be originated in the Balsas River in Southern Mexico and our Ancestors started to interact with them around 9000 years ago.
However, the Teosinte was very tiny, its ears was only two to three inches in size and has only one row of triangular shaped seeds.
Moreover, the Kernel was very hard thus humans cannot eat it, so in around 6000-1000 ago our ancestors decided to breed Teosinte with other plants of desirable traits to make the kernels softer, this process is called selective breeding.
Selective breeding is a process where is the process where we mate organisms with desirable traits in order to enhance the traits in their offspring.
Other examples of this technique are what made the Chihuahua tiny and the great Dane big.
Selective breeding has been so successful that around 1500 A.D. the corn cobs we’re five times bigger than Teosinte making it the first genetically modified crop.
Today, Teosinte is still being use in Mexico for chewing their stalk, as a side-plant to avoid in breeding and food for livestock.
So before, you eat a cob of corn remember that it use to small.
Resources
- http://raboninco.com/c23S
- https://teosinte.wisc.edu/questions.html
- https://www.britannica.com/plant/teosinte
- https://www.nativeseeds.org/pages/teosinte
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