Ancient people relied on genetic variation already present in wild plants to domesticate crops like rice and corn

Researchers using new genomic tools, including a study from NYU's Purugganan lab, have found that key traits used to domesticate crops like rice, corn, and adzuki beans were often already present at low frequencies in wild ancestor populations rather than arising fresh under cultivation. Those traits, such as rice's loss of seed-shattering or corn's exposed kernels from a single mutation in the tga1 gene, then rose to high frequency over thousands of years as farmers selected for them. The findings help answer long-standing questions about whether domestication was a rapid, deliberate process or a slow, often unconscious one.

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