I kinda stumbled over that concept of De Novo Domestication…
Interesting, to think about all that “traits” that we lost over the hundreds and thousands of years of domestication our plants into what they are now.
With the current and new technologies we could re-design from the beginning again!
“Recent technological advances have raised the possibility of de novo domestication of wild plants as a viable solution for designing ideal crops while maintaining food security and a more sustainable low-input agriculture.”
Anyway fun to think and see what kinda mutant things we have domesticated into different vegetables.
this also reminds me of a discussion with an expert for cereals domestication last year: she said that we completely destroyed the plants natural resilience to droughts. Here is one of the papers she gave me:
Part of the abstract:
Here, we show that SRN increased upon wheat domestication from 3 to 5 due to the activation of 2 root primordia that are suppressed in wild wheat, a trait controlled by loci expressed in the germinating embryo. Suppression of root primordia did not limit water uptake, indicating that 3 seminal roots is adequate to maintain growth during seedling development.
