Plant DomesticationTeacherMr. Mark.StudentsEmiliano Sánchez GómezGretha Marcial Sánchez Laura Natividad Santiago VignonValeria Hernández Martínez Fernando Olvera López

What is plant domestication?

Plant domestication is the process in which plants have been developed by humans to evolve into crop plants through artificial selection.

How did it start?

People first domesticated plants about 10,000 years ago, between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers in Mesopotamia (Iraq).

Domestication in Mesopotamia

The first domesticated plants in Mesopotamia were wheat, barley, lentils and types of peas by Eastern Asia, parts of Asia, from Africa, North and South America.

GENETICALLY MODIFIED ORGANISM (GMO)

A GMO is any organism whose DNA has

been altered using genetic engineering

techniques.

“BALSAS RIVER” This river, was one of the earliest corn

growing sites in México. It is known as the cradle of corn

domestication. Recently was found that México could

be the first site were corn was ever domesticated.

This river flows through a lot of places, which are:

Guerrero, Puebla, Morelos and México.

BALSAS RIVER.

BALSAS RIVER The Balsas River is a very important part of the story of domestication of

plants because it is the cradle of one of the most important things that now we use in batteries, perfumes, it helps pregnant women, it´s a clean fuel additive to gasoline, and, of course a food.

ASIAN RICE There are two types of rice:

the African and the Asian. It has been domesticated

since 8000 BC Asian rice originated in

India, Thailand, and Southern China

It was first domesticated in the region of the Yangtze River valley in China.

ASIAN RICE

AFRICAN RICE

African rice was independently domesticated about 3000 years ago in the Niger River Delta

It's used in a ritualistic context and as a treatment in African traditional medicine.

RICE DOMESTICATION EXPANSION

There are about 25,000 diferents species of wheat. Archeologists do not really know when wheat was domesticated, but they say it was between 12,000 and 23,000 years ago, and it took about 5000 years to be domesticated.

WHEAT HISTORY

Where was wheat domesticated Geneticists agree that wheat was

domesticated in the mountain regions of what is today Turkey. Also, wheat is the second most cultivated crop in the world.

Civilizations that depend on wheat The oldest civilization that is known to

have depended on wheat is of Syria, but there are remains of wheat found in China, Greece, Rome and England.

Difference between wild wheat and domestic wheat

The oldest wheat, also known as wild wheat, is the strain of wheat that wasn’t domesticated.

Wild wheat is also known as eacorn

Norman Borlaug DWARF WHEAT Norman Borlaug was a

geneticist, humanitarian and Nobel Laureat who has been called the father of the great agricultural revolution. He created a new strain of wheat that has saved over a billion lives in 40 years

Why wheat is so important

Wheat is the 2nd leading crop in the world. Also it is the most consumed crop. It also can affect the economy, and is so important that some states depend on wheat for their income.

CORN

Corn was domesticated from its wild grass ancestor, 8,700 years ago, in Central Balsas River Valley of Mexico. Maiz is the largest grass on earth.

Studies, confirmed that corn was derived from teosinte. There were 5 species of teosinte in México, but the teosinte species that was closest to corn was Balsas River teosinte.

Since then, corn is used for a lot of things.

Scientists discovered that Balsas River teosinte was the most similar to corn because they did a DNA test with both.

CORN DOMESTICATION

CORN DOMESTICATION.

In the last page, we could see how corn has evolved.

The teosinte is the first one in the left in both photos. This thing doesn´t look very much like the corn we actually know.

The corn is the one at the right. All these changes that corn presents from its

wild grass ancestor have been produced by plant domestication.

The Bean The common bean is one

of the most important domestic legumes in the world.

 The global harvest today has been estimated at 18.7 million tons and it is grown in nearly 150 countries on an estimated 27.7 million hectares.

 Beans were domesticated in two places: the Andes mountains of Peru, and the Lerma-Santiago basin of Mexico. 

The main difference between wild and cultivated beans are, well, domestic beans are less exciting. Of course, there is a significant increase in seed weight.

The study suggests that the wild form spread from Mesoamerica, into Ecuador and Columbia and then into the Andes, where reduced the gene diversity, at some time before domestication.

POTATO DOMESTICATION The potato as we know it today is far different than the plant first seen by humans many years ago.

The first people to encounter the potato were those located along the west coast of South America towards the end of the last Ice Age.

Did you know…

During the Alaskan Klondike gold rush, potatoes were practically worth their weight in gold. Potatoes were valued for their vitamin C. 

In October 1995, the potato became the first vegetable to be grown in space.

The spread of potatoes from Andean highlands to the coast and the rest of the Americas was a slow process.

CONCLUSION Plant domestication was clearly one of the most important

advancements of man. Once agriculture developed, it spread all around the world, and it let nomads to be sedentary.

That’s how nomads stopped walking around and stayed in one place and planted their own food and let people grow in bigger groups.

We should be very proud of our ancestors because they really, really made a big effort to discover new things. Without them we wouldn´t have a lot of technology.