Maize domestication: Facts and proofs

Abstract

Maize (Zea mays L.; 2n = 20) is a member of the world’s most successful family of agricultural crops, including wheat, rice and sugarcane. Its versatile spread across the world has its nativity to Central America. The genus Zea includes wild taxa known as teosinte (Zea mays ssp. parviglumis) and domesticated corn or maize (Z. mays ssp. mays). Maize domestication is one of the greatest events of artificial selection and evolution, wherein a weedy plant in Central Mexico was converted through human-mediated selection into the most productive crop in the world. In fact, the changes were so notable between modern maize’s and true ancestor. From its primate form to modern cultivated maize, there were several facts and proofs to show cultivated maize were originated from teosinte about 9000 years ago. The major domestication events led to odds and ends in modern maize along with some beneficial traits useful for mankind. The present review briefly explains the domestication events and breeding aspects of maize and how selection influenced on differential traits in domesticated maize?