[blam]

GGG Ping.

[pabianice]

The people of Mesoamerica are largely responsible for the golden corn we grow today, having domesticated tough teosinte grass thousands of years ago and bred it into modern maize.

Yes, just one more societal improvement "stolen by evil Europeans and claimed as their own...blah, blah, blah"

[Revelation 911]

got butter?

[TommyDale]

Willie Maize was one of my favorite baseball players.

[frithguild]

Why did the Mesoamericans plump so strongly for one branching pattern rather than another?

The secret is in the walls at Macchu Picchu:

[SunkenCiv]

thanks blam.

Please FREEPMAIL me if you want on, off, or alter the "Gods, Graves, Glyphs" PING list --
Archaeology/Anthropology/Ancient Cultures/Artifacts/Antiquities, etc.
The GGG Digest -- Gods, Graves, Glyphs (alpha order)

[RightWhale]

Hmm. Here we have fireweed and diamond willow. Maybe we can get something like a silk apple tree by crossing them, something that would thrive in the harsh subarctic growing conditions and feed the moose even better than fireweed and diamond willow by themselves.

[To Hell With Poverty]

Genetic Engineering is much faster....Mmmmm, yummy GMOs.....

[newgeezer]

Why did the Mesoamericans plump so strongly for one branching pattern rather than another? "... it probably had some impact on the architecture that was important to the Mesoamericans,"

[Chani]

pong for litter

[Don W]

But in modern maize, only one variant exists, suggesting that the others must have been eliminated by rigorous selective breeding

So, was it one of the genes that the Mesoamericans unknowingly selected for as they tamed teosinte (Zea mexicana)?

Fruitful work

The arrogance and self-importance of IV tower "intellectuals" is staggering in its delusions of grandeur and import.

[Drammach]

The stalk on the left looks a bit like the Hope "Blue Corn"..

I have read somewhere that it has fairly ancient origins and was a staple throughout Mexico and the American Southwest..

[SunkenCiv]

Early plant domestication in Mesoamerica
Athena Review Vol.2, no.1

Referring to these mysterious origins, Kent Flannery (1986) has called maize the "most controversial and most enigmatic of any major cultivated plant." All specimens of primitive maize known from archaeological sites are domesticated forms. Maize is not included in the taxa considered above under "wild-food production," nor does it appear on the list of the earliest cultigens. This is because it simply wasn't there. Identifying the wild progenitor(s?) of maize means reconstructing genetic events with little material corroboration, and so has been the subject of much speculation and debate for at least 100 years. Opinions are numerous, but currently the three leading hypotheses are: the Wild Maize Hypothesis, the Orthodox Teosinte Theory, and the Catastrophic Sexual Transmutation Theory (as shown in Benz and Iltis 1992).

I recall reading (probably 10 or 15 years ago) about the (figurative) shootout between the alleged dean of corn genetics ("Teosinte", from Wisconsin I think) and someone who was apparently at that time the lone advocate for the third model shown here.

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[farmfriend]

Rights, farms, environment ping.
Let me know if you wish to be added or removed from this list.
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[freepatriot32]

was it one of the genes that the Mesoamericans unknowingly selected for as they tamed teosinte

But in modern maize, only one variant exists, suggesting that the others must have been eliminated by rigorous selective breeding.

Ok im getting a freaking migraine here trying to figure this out.Does anyone on this thread know exactly how in the hell you can unknowingly rigorously selectively breed a plant ?Am i missing something?