矮化性状代表着高产、耐肥、抗倒伏等优良特性，是小麦、水稻、玉米等多种农作物选育优良高产品种的重要研究方向。小麦、水稻的矮化育种取得了标志性的“绿色革命”，然而所有绿色革命成就都没有提及玉米的矮化育种。事实上，玉米矮化基因研究与小麦和水稻起步大体一致， ...

Some 5,000 years later, the crop crossed with a species from the Mexican highlands called teosinte mexicana. This resulted in cold adaptability. From here, corn spread across the continent ...

It all started with a type of grass called teosinte. Before agriculture was developed, people would gather wild teosinte and ...

In 1953, the MSU Corn Foundation installed a plaque commemorating Professor William Beal’s pioneering work in hybridizing ...

From a weedy plant called teosinte with an "ear" barely an inch (2.5 centimeters) long has come our foot-long (30.5-centimeter-long) ears of sweet white and yellow corn. In just the past few ...

But beans and squashes don't become gods - why does maize? Well, the plant from which maize derives, the teosinte, is wonderfully adaptable. It's able to grow in both the lush wet lowlands and the ...

Genetic hybridization is the process of interbreeding individuals from genetically distinct populations to produce a hybrid. A genetic hybrid would therefore carry two different alleles of the ...

But beans and squashes don't become gods - why does maize? Well, the plant from which maize derives, the teosinte, is wonderfully adaptable. It's able to grow in both the lush wet lowlands and the ...

Perhaps the most iconic example of selective breeding is North American sweetcorn, which was bred from the barely edible teosinte plant. Natural corn, shown here, was first domesticated in 7,000 ...