Much of the genetic diversity of maize, however, reaches nearly five million years back, Buckler says. Others had previously pointed to a few genes that were likely integral in domestication such as those for ear size or kernel tenderness , but the new map suggests at least to genes have been involved in the domestication and selective breeding of the plant, Buckler notes.
And as it turns out, "a lot of the genes have to do with making it a big ear," he says, citing the growth from the historical few inches to today's grocery store varieties that can regularly reach more than a foot in length.
Researchers selected the B73 variety of hybrid corn to map, which was developed in the s at Iowa State University in Ames. It is "a favorite lab strain" in which a lot of the groundwork research had already been done, Wilson notes. Unlike mammals, mated corn varieties can have fairly vast genetic differences and still produce viable offspring. A partial sequencing of 27 other varieties revealed some striking variances. The Mo17 variety, for example, did not have at least genes that appear in B An abundance of genes It may seem strange that the number of DNA bases in humans should tally up nearly negligibly higher than they do in corn, but as Wilson points out, it's important "to not get hung up on the numbers.
Other theories about the relative complexity of some plants to vertebrates call on genetic efficiencies. Advanced animals can usually move out of a suboptimal environment or in the case of humans, even change it.
On the other hand, "a plant essentially has to stand there and take it," Buckler says. Many behind the project, however, assert that this new knowledge will help create varieties that will be more environmentally sound and even more specially tuned for each location being more drought tolerant or requiring less nitrogen, for example.
And more corn could mean more big business in the U. Aside from potential for fueling the economy, corn could play an important role in feeding the growing global population. How to cite.
It belongs to the family of Gramineae grasses and the tribe Maydeae along with teosinte Euchlena mexicana and the genus Tripsacum with a large number of species. The male inflorescence of maize is more similar to that of teosinte than the female inflorescence.
The ear or maize carries generally 8 to 24 rows of kernels whereas teosinte has only two rows. The teosinte ear is fragile the maize ear is not. Thank you for visiting nature. You are using a browser version with limited support for CSS. To obtain the best experience, we recommend you use a more up to date browser or turn off compatibility mode in Internet Explorer. In the meantime, to ensure continued support, we are displaying the site without styles and JavaScript. Mutants of Maize by G.
Neuffer, E. Coe and S. Wessler contains more than colour photographs of the diverse genetic variants of corn.
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