New Findings on the Development of Maize from Teosinte

Many people believe that corn, the most important crop to early American societies, developed from teosinte, a wild Mexican grass. The differences between the two are great and some doubt the possibility that corn could have developed directly from the wild plant. For example teosinte seeds have a hard shell that is difficult to crack whereas corn kernels are exposed. New research shows that this difference, perhaps the greatest differences between the two, is controlled by a single gene.

A research team led by University of Wisconsin geneticist John Doebley, made the discovery from analysis of the genetics of plants from an experimental plot of teosinte-maize hybrids. Professor Doebley feels that this single mutation would have made teosinte a useful crop, after which human selection could have led to the development of modern corn.

Link: A single gene controls a key difference between maize and its wild ancestor a University of Wisconsin news release

Posted by Eric La Fountaine at 10:00 AM on October 7, 2005

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