Nibbles: Wheat-barley hybrid, Father of Wheat Revolution, Medieval bread, Tomato history, SOWP2, Domestication, Red Data, Taro benefits, Hummus!, Textile book, Healthy rice, Avocado Wars

2 Replies to “Nibbles: Wheat-barley hybrid, Father of Wheat Revolution, Medieval bread, Tomato history, SOWP2, Domestication, Red Data, Taro benefits, Hummus!, Textile book, Healthy rice, Avocado Wars”

  1. “Of course, the farmers who bred the early versions of these crops may have been targeting large seeds because they knew these would give larger yields”. They knew nothing of the sort — smaller seeds can easily give larger yields, which is probably why 99% of grasses have seeds smaller than 20mg (all the original wild cereals have seeds larger than that pre-domestication). The question to ask is why does any plant species have large seed — clue: nothing to do with domestication, witness coco-de-mer on an oceanic island with no humans until recently.

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