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

New genomic tools let scientists dig into the family trees of crops like rice, corn and adzuki beans to learn more about how they transitioned from wild plants to domesticated crops.

By: Ornob Alam, New York University, The Conversation

Outlets: The Conversation

Published: October 12, 2026

Words: 1,322

Last Updated: 5 days, 14 hours ago

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By Ornob Alam, New York University

Oryza rufipogon is an ordinary-looking wild grass found today in parts of China, India and Southeast Asia. More than 8,000 years ago, people living in the Lower Yangtze Valley began cultivating it.

Like any other wild grass, O. rufipogon releases its seeds to the ground when ready to propagate new baby plants. Perhaps inadvertently at first, people selected rare individual plants that failed to release their seeds, kept an …

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