Maize

:This article is about the cereal. For the town, see Maize, Kansas.

Origin of maize

Maize is a direct domesticate of the teosinte Zea mays ssp. parviglumis, native to the Balsas River Valley of southern Mexico, with up to 12% of its genetic material obtained from Zea mays ssp. mexicana through introgression. The term teosinte describes all species in the genus Zea, excluding Zea mays ssp. mays.

Related Topics:
Domesticate - Teosinte - Balsas River - Mexico - Species

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Maize development is thought to have started from 7,500 to 12,000 years ago. Archaeological remains of the earliest maize cob, found at Guila Naquitz Cave in the Oaxaca Valley of Mexico, date back roughly 6,250 years.

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As a historical note, in the late 1930s, Paul Mangelsdorf suggested that domesticated maize was the result of a hybridization event between an unknown wild maize and Tripsacum. However, the proposed role of the related genus Tripsacum in the origins of maize has been refuted by modern genetic analysis.

Related Topics:
1930s - Paul Mangelsdorf

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The domestication of maize is of particular interest to researchers. It is unknown what precipitated its domestication, because the edible portion of the wild variety is too small to be worth cultivating. It would have taken many generations of selective breeding in order to produce a plant with cobs large enough to eat.

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