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Origin of Domesticated Plants. Wheat. Most domesticated food plants have been selected for:. large plant parts soft edible tissue thick flesh with intense color fruits attached to tough stems. How much domestication?.
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Most domesticated food plants have been selected for: • large plant parts • soft edible tissue • thick flesh with intense color • fruits attached to tough stems
How much domestication? • About 5000 species have been grown for human food – less than 1% of all plant species thought to exist • Today about 150 species are commercially grown for food (not including spices) • About 50 very productive species supply almost all of our caloric needs
Benefits of Domestication • 10,000 years ago, before agriculture began, the world’s total human population was about 5 million. There was one person for every 25 square kilometers. Today we have more than 7 billion people, with a density of just over 25 people per square kilometer
As agriculture developed humans selected for: 1. Plants that provide enough calories to meet our basic energy needs. This usually comes from cereal grain or root carbohydrates. 2. We also selected for a balanced nutritional intake - this tends to develop in any system where the cultivator eats and depends upon on what he/she grows.
Dog Domesticated circa 20,000 YA – shown in Egyptian painting – 4500 BCE
Vavilov centers – centers of plant diversity and areas of origin for agriculture
Plants from Near East – Fertile Crescent • Barley - Hordeum vulgare • Wheat - Triticum spp. • Lentils - Lens culinaris • Peas - Pisum sativum • chickpeas or garbanzos - Cicer arietinum • Olives - Olea europaea • Dates - Phoenix dactylifera • Grapes - Vitis vinifera - Wine began to be made from the grapes and beer from the grains • Flax - Linum usitatissimum – food and fiber
Plants from China, Far East • Millet grains - several species • Rice - Oryza sativa • Soybeans - Glycine max • Mango - Mangifera indica • Various kinds of citrus fruits - Citrus sp. • Taro - Colocasia esculenta • Bananas - Musa x paradisiaca
Plants from Africa • Sorghum - Sorghum sp. • Millet grains - several species (these developed independently of China) • Okra - Hibiscus esculentus • Yams - Dioscrorea sp. • Cotton - Gossypium sp. • Coffee - Coffea arabica
Corn (Maize) - Zea mays kidney beans - Phaseolus vulgaris lima beans - P. lunatus Peanuts - Arachis hypogaea cotton (developed independently from Africa) chili peppers - Capiscum sp. Tomatoes - Lycopersicon sp. Tobacco - Nicotiana tabacum Cacao - Theobroma cacao Pineapple - Ananas comosus Pumpkins, squashes - Cucurbita sp. Avocados - Persea americana Plants from Mexico
Plants from Peru • Potato -Solanum tuberosum and many related species • Quinoa - Chenopodium quinoa • Amaranth – Amaranthus (3 species) • tomatoes and peanuts may have really originated in Peru and then been taken to Mexico
First ethnobotanical rule of food production • In indigenous agriculture where the crops are consumed and not sold, there evolves and is maintained a reasonable level of nutritional adequacy
Second ethnobotanical rule of food production • In indigenous agriculture where the crops are grown mainly or only for sale, there develops an expanding surplus of food. The overall objective of such agricultural systems is to replace a pre-existing (natural) plant community with a cultivator-made community
It then follows that: If the potentially unstable increase in food production and human population is to be maintained, it must be consistent with three aims: 1. To operate at a maximum profit (labor/yield). 2. To minimize year-to-year instability in production. 3. To operate so as to prevent long-term degradation of the production capacity of the agricultural system.
Benefits of Three Sisters Mounds • In the Northeast where ground was frequently cold and damp in early spring, mounds allowed the soil to warm up and drain more quickly • Mounds allowed an increase in soil organic matter by repeatedly incorporating dead plant material with soil in mounds • Decomposition of dead plant material increased soil nutrients; also growing beans which are N-fixers increased soil N for all plants in the mound • Mounds minimized soil compaction (people did not walk on mounds, but around them) and reduced soil erosion as fields were not constantly plowed or dug up • Mound system allowed easy regulation of plant spacing and plant populations
Darwin on Artificial Selection “Although man did not cause variability and cannot even prevent it, he can select, preserve, and accumulate the variations given to him by the hand of nature almost in any way which he chooses; and thus can certainly produce a great result… Selection by man may be followed either methodically and intentionally, or unconsciously and unintentionally… We can further understand how it is that domestic races of plants often exhibit an abnormal character, as compared to natural species, for they have been modified not for their own benefit, but for that of man.”
The Green Revolution • The Green Revolution refers to the transformation of agriculture that began in 1945, largely due to the life work of Norman Borlaug. One significant factor in this revolution was the Mexican government's request to establish an agricultural research station to develop more varieties of wheat that could be used to feed the rapidly growing population of the country.
Green Revolution Advances • The main technological development of the Green Revolution was the production of novel wheat cultivars. Agronomists bred cultivars of maize, wheat, and rice that are generally referred to as HYVs or “high-yielding varieties”. HYVs have higher nitrogen-absorbing potential than other varieties. Since cereals that absorbed extra nitrogen would typically lodge, or fall over before harvest, semi-dwarfing genes were bred into their genomes. A Japanese dwarf wheat cultivar (Norin 10) wheat was instrumental in developing Green Revolution wheat cultivars. IR8, the first widely implemented HYV rice to be developed by IRRI, was also a dwarf variety.
