Crop origins and evolution

The origins of agriculture and domesticated crops are intertwined, and the change from a hunter-gatherer mode to tillage, sowing and harvesting was one of the major technologcal innovations of humankind. This occured some 10,000 years ago in several different locations, and involved the domestication of wild-relatives of the major crops (see History of Agriculture.

Domestication involves changes in the genetic makeup and morphological appearance of plants (and animals) but the wild-relatives of crop continue today to beimportant sources of genetic diversity and traits to protects domesticated crops from stresses and disease (see Plant breeding), and knowledge of crop origins is of significant practical importance.

Further reading

• Chapter 13. Ten thousand years of crop evolution. Paul Gepts. In Chrispeels, Maarten J.; Sadava, David E. (editors) (2003). Plants, Genes and Crop Biotechnology, 2th ed.. Jones and Bartlett. ISBN 0-7637-1586-7. 
• Diamond, Jared (1997). Guns, Germs and Steel: A Short History of Everybody for the Last 13,000 Years, 1sh ed.. Vintage. ISBN 0-09-939278-0.