Three of the 8 most produced food vegetables in the world (image below; exclud milk) are native to the New World: maize (2ª), a monocot originating in Mesoamerica; potato and cassava (7ª and 9ª, respectively), both dicot tubers originating in South America.
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| LARGE PRODUCED CROPS WORLDWIDE IN 2021 (STATISTA) |
Among the other five in Top 8, sugar-cane, wheat and rice are Poaceae native from Old World; soybean are legumes native from Asia; and oil palm is a derivated aliment of African palm native species.
Sugarcane is the world’s largest cultivated cash crop with its incredible ability to synthesize and accumulate sucrose in its stem; present day sugarcane is a man-made hybrid clone produced from Saccharum officinarum L. (Indonesian Archipelago, absent in the natural wild conditions but was grown and maintained for a long time by the island natives) and S. spontaneum L. (Marocco to Australia, Khazakhstan to Java) with a few genes incorporated from S. barberi (Indian cane, contested taxa), and S. sinense (Chinese cane, contested taxa) and to a limited extent from S. robustum E.W.Brandes & Jeswiet ex Grassl (Wallacean cane), all from tropical Asia to Oceania (SEE).The hexaploid wheat (AABBDD), namely Triticum aestivum L., originated in SE Turkey by archeological records, contains three different genomes each derived from different diploid species. Initially, the progenitor species containing AA (the wild T. urartu Thumanjan ex Gandilyan) and BB subgenomes (wild Aegilops speltoides Tausch.) were discovered and these were hybridized followed by a doubling of chromosomes which resulted in tetraploid fertile wheat, T. turgidum L. (cultigen, AABB). Then the T. turgidum, wild emmer, was domesticated in Fertile Crescent; afterward, T. turgidum hybridized with a diploid wild species A. tauschii Coss. which resulted in the formation of hexaploid wheat (AABBDD) in Fertile Crescent, cultigen widely distributed in world. Because of its high acceptance as an ultimate source of calories, it was spread into different parts of the world via different routes. After domestication, hexaploid wheat was cultivated and selected in diverse geographical regions for centuries which resulted in present-day cultivated bread wheat. Among diploids, einkorn wheat, T. monococcum L., is considered the first domesticated hulled wheat. The historical record shows that it was domesticated 12,000—c. 8,500 years ago in the Pre-Pottery Neolithic period. However, cultivated tetraploids T. turgidum subsp. dicoccum (Schrank ex Schübl.) Thell. (wheat emmer) and T. turgidum subsp. durum (Desf.) Husn. (tetraploid durum), both arose from wild ancestors (SEE).Asian cultivated rice Oryza sativa L. was domesticated from the wild rice species O. rufipogon Giff.; the domestication process began around 9,000 years ago in China, possibly in the Yangtze valley, besides the wider range of this species from India to Australia (POWO). There, early communities selected for rice plants with beneficial traits, such as enhanced seed/fruit size, better flavor, and resistance to diseases, pests, and environmental stresses (SEE).Cultivated soybean (Glycine max subsp. max) appears to have been domesticated from its wild relative G. max subsp. soja (Siebold & Zucc.) H.Ohashi 6,000–9,000 yrs ago in China. Although the exact site of origin of soybean is unknown, S China, the Yellow River valley of central China, NE China, and several other regions (e.g., Korea and Japan) have been identified as candidate regions where soybean could have been domesticated. Chinese literature has indicated that soybean was cultivated during the Shang dynasty from 1,700 to 1,100 BC. Clearly, soybean has been cultivated much longer than the historical evidence indicates. It is commonly accepted that the current cultivated soybean was domesticated from G. max subp. soja. However, some works have suggested that soybean was domesticated from a common ancestor of these two Glycine subspecies, based on a calculated divergence time (SEE).
1. MAIZE (Zea mays L./Poaceae: 1,148 M tons in 2021) ‣ maize domestication began in SW Mexico ∼9,000 calendar years before present and humans dispersed this important grain to South America by at least 7,000 years as a partial domesticate. South America served as a secondary improvement center where the domestication syndrome became fixed and new lineages emerged in parallel with similar processes in Mesoamerica. Later, Indigenous cultivators carried a second major wave of maize southward from Mesoamerica (c. 2,000 yr), hybridizing with long-established landraces from the first wave, and that some of the resulting newly admixed lineages were then reintroduced to Central America. Direct radiocarbon dates and cob morphological data from the rock shelter suggest that more productive maize varieties developed between 4,300 and 2,500 cal. BP. (SEE).
2. POTATO (Solanum tuberosum L./Solanaceae: 370.4 M tons in 2021) ‣ cultivated potatoes came from the wild species extensively cultivated in the Andean region (Peru, N Argentina and Bolivia); the domestication of cultivated potato occurs some 8,000 to 10,000 years ago, from diploid wild species (2n = 2x = 24); at first, people assumed potato as a suspicious relative of S. nigrum, a toxic species. S. stenotomum (2x) was the first domesticated potato and considered as the descendant of diploid (2x) wild species. Andean cultivated tetraploids (S. tuberosum group Andigena; 2n = 4x = 48) were produced as a result of autopolyploidization of early diploid landraces S. tuberosum groups Stenotomum [2x] and Phureja [2x]. The domestication of potato from wild species S. brevicaule complex encompasses the selection for underground traits like large tubers with diverse shapes and colour, shorter stolon and reduced bitter taste due to tuber glycoalkaloids. The oldest record of potato consumption is from the site called Jisk'a Iru Muqu, in the Western Titicaca Basin in the Andes mountains of Peru, in 3,400 B.C (Nytimes).
Potatoes were introduced to Europe from the Americas by the Spanish in the second half of the 16th century. Today they are a staple food in many parts of the world and an integral part of much of the world's food supply. As of 2021, potatoes were the world's seventh-largest food crop after maize (corn), wheat, rice, milk and oil palm; following millennia of selective breeding, there are now over 5,000 different types of potatoes. Over 99% of potatoes presently cultivated worldwide descend from varieties that originated in the lowlands of south-central Chile (Wikipedia).
3. CASSAVA (Manihot esculenta Crantz/Euphorbiaceae: 303.6 M tons in 2021) ‣ integrating evidence from comparative plant genetics and paleoethnobotanic starch analysis to contribute to the archaeology of manioc origins, this review finds that (1) the strongest candidate for the botanical origin of domesticated manioc - the wild progenitor of the root crop - is the species Manihot esculenta subsp. flabellifolia (Pohl) Ciferri; (2) the geographical origin of manioc - the biome in which the progenitor evolved - is most likely in savanas of C Brazil (cerrado), to the south of the Amazon rainforest; (3) savanas of C Brazil (cerrado) is also, in our best estimate, the region of agricultural origin of initial cultivation; (4) domesticated manioc had spread from the agricultural origin by the early Holocene, possibly as early as 10,000 years ago, but certainly by 7000 B.C.; (5) domesticated manioc was a readily available plant in most habitats of the Neotropics by the mid-Holocene, at least some 6500 years ago (Latin America Antiquity); (6) cassava was domesticated only once, in southern Amazonia, and that no historical hybridization occurred between cassava and wild relatives in northern Amazonia (Mol. Phyl. Evol., 2009).
Cassava starches have been identified in north-central Colombia by approximately 7,500 years ago, and in Panama at Aguadulce Shelter, about 6,900 years ago. Pollen grains from cultivated cassava have been found in archaeological sites in Belize and Mexico's Gulf coast by 5,800–4,500 bp, and in Puerto Rico between 3,300 and 2,900 years ago. Thus, scholars can safely say that the domestication in the Amazon had to happen before 7,500 years ago (ThroughtCo).
