RESEARCH STARTER

Plant domestication and breeding

Plant domestication and breeding refer to the processes through which humans have cultivated wild plants and selectively bred them for desirable traits over thousands of years. The origins of crop cultivation date back between 8,000 to 10,000 years ago, primarily in regions like the Tigris and Euphrates, as well as Central America. Early agricultural practices emerged as humans learned to sow and harvest seeds, gradually allowing for stable food supplies that supported permanent settlements.

By around 6,000 years ago, various regions, including Asia and the Americas, had established agriculture, leading to the domestication of key crops such as wheat, corn, and rice. The need for higher yields has driven modern breeding efforts, particularly during the Green Revolution of the 1960s, which introduced high-yield varieties through selective breeding techniques. Advances in genetics have further transformed plant breeding, allowing for the transfer of specific desirable traits using recombinant DNA technology. This innovative approach enables the introduction of genetic material from different species, vastly expanding the potential for crop improvement and adaptation. Overall, plant domestication and breeding have played a crucial role in shaping human civilization and ensuring food security.

Full Article

  • Categories: Agriculture; economic botany and plant uses

No one knows exactly when the first crop was cultivated, but most authorities believe that it occurred more than ten thousand years ago. For centuries prior to that time, humans had known that some wild plants and plant parts (such as fruits, leaves, and roots) were edible. These plants appeared periodically (usually annually) and randomly throughout a given region. Eventually, humans discovered that these wild plants grew from seeds and that the seeds from certain wild plants could be collected, planted, and later gathered for food. This most likely occurred at about the same time independently in several regions, including Southwest Asia, China, and the Americas. While the earliest attempts at domesticating plants were primarily to supplement the food supply provided by hunting and gathering, people soon improved their ability to domesticate and breed plants to the point that they could depend on an annual supply of food. This food supply allowed the development of permanent settlements.

Early Crop Domestication

By six thousand years ago, agriculture was firmly established in Asia, India, Mesopotamia, Egypt, Mexico, Central America, and South America. Before recorded history, these areas had domesticated some of the world’s most important food (corn, rice, and wheat) and fiber (cotton, flax, and hemp) crops. The place of origin of wheat is generally traced to the Fertile Crescent, where its wild relatives grew, and it spread from there to the rest of the Old World. Wheat was grown by Stone Age Europeans and was reportedly produced in China as far back as 2700 BCE. Wheat is the major staple for about 35 percent of the people of the world. The earliest traces of the human utilization of corn date back to about 5200 BCE. It was probably first cultivated in the high plateau region of central or southern Mexico and became a major food plant in many pre-Columbian civilizations, including the Maya, and it was also important in the Inca world.

Botanists believe that rice originated in Southeast Asia. Rice was being cultivated in India as early as 3000 BCE and spread from there throughout Asia and Malaysia. Rice is one of the world’s most important cereal grains and is the principal food crop of almost half of the world’s people. Hemp, one of the earliest plants cultivated for fiber, was cultivated for the purpose of making cloth in China as early as the twenty-eighth century BCE. It was used as the cordage or rope on almost all ancient sailing vessels. Linen, made from flax, is one of the oldest fabrics. Traces of flax plants have been identified in archaeological sites dating back to the Stone Age, and flax was cultivated in Mesopotamia and Egypt five thousand years ago. Cotton has been known and highly valued by people throughout the world for more than three thousand years. From India, where a vigorous cotton industry began as early as 1500 BCE, the cultivation of cotton spread to Egypt and then to Spain and Italy. In the West Indies and South America, a different species of cotton was grown long before the Europeans arrived. Other important plants that have been under domestic cultivation since antiquity include dates, figs, olives, onions, grapes, bananas, lemons, cucumbers, lentils, garlic, lettuce, mint, radishes, and various melons.

Modern Plant Breeding

Genetic variability is prevalent in plants and other organisms that reproduce sexually. Throughout most of history, plant domestication and breeding were primarily based on the propagation of mutants. When a grower observed a plant with a potentially desirable mutation (such as a change that produced bigger fruit, brighter flowers, or increased insect resistance), the grower would collect seeds or take cuttings and produce additional plants with the desirable characteristic. Advances in the understanding of genetics in the early part of the twentieth century made it possible to breed some of the desirable characteristics resulting from mutation into plants that previously lacked the characteristic. Later, plant breeders also used DNA markers, genome sequencing, and genomic selection to identify useful traits more precisely and to predict which plants were most likely to pass those traits to the next generation.

The obvious advantages of producing plants with improved characteristics, such as higher yield, made plant breeding very desirable. Some breeding programs also aim to increase the vitamin and mineral content of staple crops, a strategy known as biofortification. As human populations continued to grow, there was a need to select and produce higher-yielding crops. Over time, plant breeders also began to select for tolerance to drought, heat, salinity, and disease so that crops could perform better under difficult growing conditions. The development and widespread use of high-yield varieties of crop plants in the 1960s is often referred to as the Green Revolution. Basic information supplied by biological scientists allowed plant breeders to fuse a variety of characteristics from different plants to produce higher-yielding varieties of numerous crops, particularly seed grains. Plant breeders also use controlled growing conditions and genomic selection to shorten generation time and to speed the development of new crop varieties.

When a plant characteristic is identified as desirable, it is studied both morphologically and biochemically to determine the mechanism of inheritance. If it is determined that the mechanism is transferable, attempts are made to incorporate the trait into the target plant. If the plants are closely related, traditional breeding techniques are used to crossbreed the plant with the desirable trait with the plant that lacks the characteristic. Although this process is often tedious, it is based on a fairly simple concept. Basically, pollen from one of the plant types is used to fertilize the other plant type. This process often requires specialized handling techniques to ensure that only the pollen from the plant with the desired characteristic is allowed to fertilize the eggs of the recipient plant.

Sometimes this process involves the use of bags or other materials to isolate the recipient flowers, which are then pollinated by hand. Another technique involves the introduction of a gene for male sterility into the recipient plant. In these cases, only pollen from another plant can be used to fertilize the egg. Once plants with the desirable characteristics are developed, the lines are often inbred to maintain large numbers of progeny with the desired traits. In many cases, inbred lines will lose vigor after several generations. When this occurs, two inbred lines may be crossed to produce hybrids. A majority of the hybrid offspring will still contain the desired characteristics but will be more vigorous.

Recombinant Technology

The use of traditional breeding techniques between two very closely related species was the only means of transferring heritable characteristics from one to the other. The advent of recombinant technologies in the manipulation of deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA), however, made it possible to transfer genetic characteristics from other organisms into many plants without relying on traditional crosses. Later gene-editing methods, especially CRISPR-Cas systems, made it possible to change DNA more precisely. These methods include base editing, prime editing, and epigenome editing. The simplest method for accomplishing this transfer involves the use of a vector, usually a piece of circular DNA called a plasmid. The plasmid is removed from a microorganism such as a bacterium and cut open by an enzyme called a restriction endonuclease, or restriction enzyme. A section of DNA from the plant donor cell that contains the gene for an identified desirable trait is cut from the donor cell DNA by the same restriction endonuclease. The section of plant donor cell DNA with the gene for the characteristic of interest is then combined with the open plasmid DNA, and the plasmid is closed with the new gene as part of its structure. The recombinant plasmid (DNA from two sources) is placed back into the bacterium, where it will replicate and can be used to produce the desired protein. The bacterium is then used as a vector to transfer the gene to another plant, where it will also be transcribed and translated. Gene editing can also be used in de novo domestication, in which useful wild plants are changed into crop candidates by editing traits such as seed retention, oil quality, and growth habit. The use of these methods is also shaped by national regulations for biotechnology products. Some gene-editing systems can also produce heritable changes without leaving foreign DNA in the final plant.


Bibliography

Chen, Zongliang, et al. “Recent Advances in Crop Transformation Technologies.” Nature Plants, vol. 8, no. 12, 2022, pp. 1343–51, doi:10.1038/s41477-022-01295-8. Accessed 5 Apr. 2026.

Fennema, O. R., editor. Principles of Food Science. Dekker, 1975.

Genetically Modified Foods: Safety Issues. American Chemical Society, 1995.

Hickey, Lee T., et al. “Breeding Crops to Feed 10 Billion.” Nature Biotechnology, vol. 37, no. 7, 2019, pp. 744–54, doi:10.1038/s41587-019-0152-9. Accessed 5 Apr. 2026.

“Inca.” Encyclopedia Britannica, 28 Mar. 2026, www.britannica.com/topic/Inca. Accessed 5 Apr. 2026.

Levy, Avraham A., and Moshe Feldman. “Evolution and Origin of Bread Wheat.” The Plant Cell, vol. 34, no. 7, 2022, pp. 2549–67, doi:10.1093/plcell/koac130. Accessed 5 Apr. 2026.

Li, Jie, et al. “Biofortification’s Contribution to Mitigating Micronutrient Deficiencies.” Nature Food, vol. 5, 2024, pp. 19–27, doi:10.1038/s43016-023-00905-8. Accessed 5 Apr. 2026.

Mascher, Martin, et al. “Promises and Challenges of Crop Translational Genomics.” Nature, vol. 636, no. 8043, 2024, pp. 585–93, doi:10.1038/s41586-024-07713-5. Accessed 5 Apr. 2026.

Metcalfe, Darrel S., and Donald M. Elkins. Crop Production: Principles and Practices. 4th ed., Macmillan, 1980.

Ornob, Alam, and Michael D. Purugganan. “Domestication and the Evolution of Crops: Variable Syndromes, Complex Genetic Architectures, and Ecological Entanglements.” The Plant Cell, vol. 36, no. 5, 2024, pp. 1227–41, doi:10.1093/plcell/koae013. Accessed 5 Apr. 2026.

Qiao, Ji-Hui, et al. “Transgene- and Tissue Culture-Free Heritable Genome Editing Using RNA Virus-Based Delivery in Wheat.” Nature Plants, vol. 11, no. 7, 2025, pp. 1252–9, doi:10.1038/s41477-025-02023-8. Accessed 5 Apr. 2026.

“Revised Biotechnology Regulations (Previously SECURE Rule).” Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS), 30 July 2025, www.aphis.usda.gov/biotechnology/regulations/secure-rule. Accessed 5 Apr. 2026.

Rissler, Jane. The Ecological Risks of Engineered Crops. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1996.

Full Article

  • Categories: Agriculture; economic botany and plant uses

No one knows exactly when the first crop was cultivated, but most authorities believe that it occurred more than ten thousand years ago. For centuries prior to that time, humans had known that some wild plants and plant parts (such as fruits, leaves, and roots) were edible. These plants appeared periodically (usually annually) and randomly throughout a given region. Eventually, humans discovered that these wild plants grew from seeds and that the seeds from certain wild plants could be collected, planted, and later gathered for food. This most likely occurred at about the same time independently in several regions, including Southwest Asia, China, and the Americas. While the earliest attempts at domesticating plants were primarily to supplement the food supply provided by hunting and gathering, people soon improved their ability to domesticate and breed plants to the point that they could depend on an annual supply of food. This food supply allowed the development of permanent settlements.

Early Crop Domestication

By six thousand years ago, agriculture was firmly established in Asia, India, Mesopotamia, Egypt, Mexico, Central America, and South America. Before recorded history, these areas had domesticated some of the world’s most important food (corn, rice, and wheat) and fiber (cotton, flax, and hemp) crops. The place of origin of wheat is generally traced to the Fertile Crescent, where its wild relatives grew, and it spread from there to the rest of the Old World. Wheat was grown by Stone Age Europeans and was reportedly produced in China as far back as 2700 BCE. Wheat is the major staple for about 35 percent of the people of the world. The earliest traces of the human utilization of corn date back to about 5200 BCE. It was probably first cultivated in the high plateau region of central or southern Mexico and became a major food plant in many pre-Columbian civilizations, including the Maya, and it was also important in the Inca world.

Botanists believe that rice originated in Southeast Asia. Rice was being cultivated in India as early as 3000 BCE and spread from there throughout Asia and Malaysia. Rice is one of the world’s most important cereal grains and is the principal food crop of almost half of the world’s people. Hemp, one of the earliest plants cultivated for fiber, was cultivated for the purpose of making cloth in China as early as the twenty-eighth century BCE. It was used as the cordage or rope on almost all ancient sailing vessels. Linen, made from flax, is one of the oldest fabrics. Traces of flax plants have been identified in archaeological sites dating back to the Stone Age, and flax was cultivated in Mesopotamia and Egypt five thousand years ago. Cotton has been known and highly valued by people throughout the world for more than three thousand years. From India, where a vigorous cotton industry began as early as 1500 BCE, the cultivation of cotton spread to Egypt and then to Spain and Italy. In the West Indies and South America, a different species of cotton was grown long before the Europeans arrived. Other important plants that have been under domestic cultivation since antiquity include dates, figs, olives, onions, grapes, bananas, lemons, cucumbers, lentils, garlic, lettuce, mint, radishes, and various melons.

Modern Plant Breeding

Genetic variability is prevalent in plants and other organisms that reproduce sexually. Throughout most of history, plant domestication and breeding were primarily based on the propagation of mutants. When a grower observed a plant with a potentially desirable mutation (such as a change that produced bigger fruit, brighter flowers, or increased insect resistance), the grower would collect seeds or take cuttings and produce additional plants with the desirable characteristic. Advances in the understanding of genetics in the early part of the twentieth century made it possible to breed some of the desirable characteristics resulting from mutation into plants that previously lacked the characteristic. Later, plant breeders also used DNA markers, genome sequencing, and genomic selection to identify useful traits more precisely and to predict which plants were most likely to pass those traits to the next generation.

The obvious advantages of producing plants with improved characteristics, such as higher yield, made plant breeding very desirable. Some breeding programs also aim to increase the vitamin and mineral content of staple crops, a strategy known as biofortification. As human populations continued to grow, there was a need to select and produce higher-yielding crops. Over time, plant breeders also began to select for tolerance to drought, heat, salinity, and disease so that crops could perform better under difficult growing conditions. The development and widespread use of high-yield varieties of crop plants in the 1960s is often referred to as the Green Revolution. Basic information supplied by biological scientists allowed plant breeders to fuse a variety of characteristics from different plants to produce higher-yielding varieties of numerous crops, particularly seed grains. Plant breeders also use controlled growing conditions and genomic selection to shorten generation time and to speed the development of new crop varieties.

When a plant characteristic is identified as desirable, it is studied both morphologically and biochemically to determine the mechanism of inheritance. If it is determined that the mechanism is transferable, attempts are made to incorporate the trait into the target plant. If the plants are closely related, traditional breeding techniques are used to crossbreed the plant with the desirable trait with the plant that lacks the characteristic. Although this process is often tedious, it is based on a fairly simple concept. Basically, pollen from one of the plant types is used to fertilize the other plant type. This process often requires specialized handling techniques to ensure that only the pollen from the plant with the desired characteristic is allowed to fertilize the eggs of the recipient plant.

Sometimes this process involves the use of bags or other materials to isolate the recipient flowers, which are then pollinated by hand. Another technique involves the introduction of a gene for male sterility into the recipient plant. In these cases, only pollen from another plant can be used to fertilize the egg. Once plants with the desirable characteristics are developed, the lines are often inbred to maintain large numbers of progeny with the desired traits. In many cases, inbred lines will lose vigor after several generations. When this occurs, two inbred lines may be crossed to produce hybrids. A majority of the hybrid offspring will still contain the desired characteristics but will be more vigorous.

Recombinant Technology

The use of traditional breeding techniques between two very closely related species was the only means of transferring heritable characteristics from one to the other. The advent of recombinant technologies in the manipulation of deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA), however, made it possible to transfer genetic characteristics from other organisms into many plants without relying on traditional crosses. Later gene-editing methods, especially CRISPR-Cas systems, made it possible to change DNA more precisely. These methods include base editing, prime editing, and epigenome editing. The simplest method for accomplishing this transfer involves the use of a vector, usually a piece of circular DNA called a plasmid. The plasmid is removed from a microorganism such as a bacterium and cut open by an enzyme called a restriction endonuclease, or restriction enzyme. A section of DNA from the plant donor cell that contains the gene for an identified desirable trait is cut from the donor cell DNA by the same restriction endonuclease. The section of plant donor cell DNA with the gene for the characteristic of interest is then combined with the open plasmid DNA, and the plasmid is closed with the new gene as part of its structure. The recombinant plasmid (DNA from two sources) is placed back into the bacterium, where it will replicate and can be used to produce the desired protein. The bacterium is then used as a vector to transfer the gene to another plant, where it will also be transcribed and translated. Gene editing can also be used in de novo domestication, in which useful wild plants are changed into crop candidates by editing traits such as seed retention, oil quality, and growth habit. The use of these methods is also shaped by national regulations for biotechnology products. Some gene-editing systems can also produce heritable changes without leaving foreign DNA in the final plant.


Bibliography

Chen, Zongliang, et al. “Recent Advances in Crop Transformation Technologies.” Nature Plants, vol. 8, no. 12, 2022, pp. 1343–51, doi:10.1038/s41477-022-01295-8. Accessed 5 Apr. 2026.

Fennema, O. R., editor. Principles of Food Science. Dekker, 1975.

Genetically Modified Foods: Safety Issues. American Chemical Society, 1995.

Hickey, Lee T., et al. “Breeding Crops to Feed 10 Billion.” Nature Biotechnology, vol. 37, no. 7, 2019, pp. 744–54, doi:10.1038/s41587-019-0152-9. Accessed 5 Apr. 2026.

“Inca.” Encyclopedia Britannica, 28 Mar. 2026, www.britannica.com/topic/Inca. Accessed 5 Apr. 2026.

Levy, Avraham A., and Moshe Feldman. “Evolution and Origin of Bread Wheat.” The Plant Cell, vol. 34, no. 7, 2022, pp. 2549–67, doi:10.1093/plcell/koac130. Accessed 5 Apr. 2026.

Li, Jie, et al. “Biofortification’s Contribution to Mitigating Micronutrient Deficiencies.” Nature Food, vol. 5, 2024, pp. 19–27, doi:10.1038/s43016-023-00905-8. Accessed 5 Apr. 2026.

Mascher, Martin, et al. “Promises and Challenges of Crop Translational Genomics.” Nature, vol. 636, no. 8043, 2024, pp. 585–93, doi:10.1038/s41586-024-07713-5. Accessed 5 Apr. 2026.

Metcalfe, Darrel S., and Donald M. Elkins. Crop Production: Principles and Practices. 4th ed., Macmillan, 1980.

Ornob, Alam, and Michael D. Purugganan. “Domestication and the Evolution of Crops: Variable Syndromes, Complex Genetic Architectures, and Ecological Entanglements.” The Plant Cell, vol. 36, no. 5, 2024, pp. 1227–41, doi:10.1093/plcell/koae013. Accessed 5 Apr. 2026.

Qiao, Ji-Hui, et al. “Transgene- and Tissue Culture-Free Heritable Genome Editing Using RNA Virus-Based Delivery in Wheat.” Nature Plants, vol. 11, no. 7, 2025, pp. 1252–9, doi:10.1038/s41477-025-02023-8. Accessed 5 Apr. 2026.

“Revised Biotechnology Regulations (Previously SECURE Rule).” Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS), 30 July 2025, www.aphis.usda.gov/biotechnology/regulations/secure-rule. Accessed 5 Apr. 2026.

Rissler, Jane. The Ecological Risks of Engineered Crops. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1996.

More Like ThisRelated Articles

Related Articles (4)

Related Articles (4)