Nine thousand years ago, Indigenous peoples engineered a crop that was man first and greatest feat of genetic engineering. Most crops like wheat and millet have wild ancestors that look like the crop. But in the Balsas River Valley in southwestern Mexico, the Indigenous people living there domesticated a plant that looks nothing like its wild ancestor. They were the Makaya and Mixe Zoque who took shelter in caves.
There was a wild grass that grew in the region called teosinte. Teosinte was a bushy grass with dozens of branches. Its seeds were tiny and enclosed in rock hard casings. These people likely threw this grass onto their fire to help it burn, and suddenly the seeds started popping, exposing a soft edible starch.
Once they realized the value of this grass, they began to change it. They noticed natural variations in the wild. Some plants had softer shells. Others had fewer branches. They carefully saved the seeds of the plants they preferred and began growing them. By choosing only the best seeds to replant cycle after cycle, they artificially guided the evolution of the species that became Maize, the top crop in the world, feeding billions of humans and animals.
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