Plant cultivation. Cultivated plants examples and names

At the dawn of humanity, people had to be content only with what the surrounding nature provided. Our ancestors collected the fruits of various trees, berries, grains of wild cereals and seeds of legumes, dug up tubers and bulbs. The transition from gathering to plant cultivation was a long one. Archaeologists believe that agriculture has existed for at least 10 thousand years, and attempts to domesticate plants began at least 40-50 thousand years ago. Even then, protecting wild plants useful plants, the women weeded out the grass around them and loosened the soil.

Plants were introduced into culture in different ways. Wild seeds fruit trees and berry bushes fell into the soil near a person’s home and germinate here. Grains bread plants people often woke up near their homes on the ground containing a lot of decomposed waste. Plants from such seeds developed much better than in the steppe or forest. This could have given our ancestors the idea of ​​growing them near their homes, instead of looking for them in forests and steppes.

Primitive man collected the plants that surrounded him: on the mainland of Eurasia - some species, in Africa - others, in America - others. Therefore on different continents many different species have been domesticated. Most crops come from Europe, Asia and Africa. Of the 640 most important cultivated plants More than 530 of the globe comes from these parts of the world, with about 400 South Asia. Approximately 50 cultivated species appeared in Africa, and North and South America are the birthplace of more than 100 of them. There were no cultivated plants in Australia before the arrival of Europeans.

The doctrine of the centers of origin of cultivated plants was created by the outstanding Soviet scientist N. I. Vavilov. He established 7 main centers of their origin: 5 in the Old World and 2 in the New.

The most ancient of modern cereal grains are wheat, barley, millet, rice and corn. Cultivated wheat species are descended from at least three wild cereals growing in Asia Minor, southern Europe and northern Africa. Wheat culture already existed in the Neolithic era. During excavations of Neolithic settlements in Europe, grains of wheat, seeds of peas, lentils and beans were found. The homeland of rice is India and Indochina. Many wild forms of this plant have been found there. Relatively late, around the beginning of our era, rye appeared in Transcaucasia or Asia Minor, and a little earlier - oats. The homeland of corn and potatoes is South and Central America. We owe the appearance of cultivated varieties of tomatoes to Peru and Mexico, capsicum, pumpkins, beans. Central America produced tobacco, and North America produced sunflower. Vegetable crops - cabbage, turnips, radishes, beets, carrots, onions - were known in ancient times and originate from the Mediterranean.

In tropical countries South America yams (sweet potatoes), pineapple and peanuts were cultivated. Indochina produced oranges, lemons and other citrus plants. Coffee comes from Ethiopia, where its wild ancestor still grows. Tea was introduced into culture in the mountainous regions of Burma. Cocoa was known in Mexico even before Europeans arrived there. Cocoa beans even played the role of money there.

In very distant times, man began to cultivate spinning plants. In Europe, flax was introduced into the culture, in China - hemp, in America and Asia - cotton.

Later, with the development of navigation, especially during the era of the Great geographical discoveries, the migration of cultivated plants from one continent to another began. Thus, corn, pumpkin, beans, tomatoes, peppers, sunflowers and tobacco migrated to Europe from America.

From year to year, from century to century, farmers, improving the methods of cultivating crops, simultaneously improved the plants themselves, selecting for sowing the seeds of the most productive of them or those with some particularly valuable property.

The gradual improvement of cultivated plants was not the work of one generation - it lasted for millennia. Agricultural tribes gradually settled across the Earth, and cultivated plants spread along with them. With the appearance and spread of cultivated plants on Earth, the living conditions of people changed. The emergence and development of agriculture led to a huge shift in the history of human society.

At the dawn of humanity, people had to be content only with what the surrounding nature provided. Our ancestors collected the fruits of various trees, berries, grains of wild cereals and seeds of legumes, dug up tubers and bulbs. The transition from gathering to plant cultivation was a long one. Archaeologists believe that agriculture has existed for at least 10 thousand years, and attempts to domesticate plants began at least 40–50 thousand years ago. Even then, protecting wild useful plants, women weeded out the grass around them and loosened the soil.

Agriculture and plant growing originated in ancient times. An ancient Egyptian fresco depicts the wheat harvest - reaping, knitting and transporting sheaves, placing them in stacks and threshing.

Plants were introduced into culture in different ways. Seeds of wild fruit trees and berry bushes fell into the soil near a person’s home and germinate here. People often spilled the grains of grain plants near their homes onto the ground, which contained a lot of decomposed waste. Plants from such seeds developed much better than in the steppe or forest. This could have given our ancestors the idea of ​​growing them near their homes, instead of looking for them in forests and steppes.

Primitive man collected the plants that surrounded him: on the mainland of Eurasia - some species, in Africa - others, in America - others. Therefore, on different continents, many various types. Most crops come from Europe, Asia and Africa. Of the 640 most important cultivated plants in the world, more than 530 come from these parts of the world, with about 400 originating from South Asia. About 50 cultivated species have appeared in Africa, and North and South America are home to more than 100 of them. There were no cultivated plants in Australia before the arrival of Europeans.

The doctrine of the centers of origin of cultivated plants was created by the outstanding Soviet scientist N. I. Vavilov. He established 7 main centers of their origin: 5 in the Old World and 2 in the New.

The most ancient of modern cereal grains are wheat, barley, millet, rice and corn. Cultivated wheat species are descended from at least three wild cereals growing in Asia Minor, southern Europe and northern Africa. Wheat culture already existed in the Neolithic era. During excavations of Neolithic settlements in Europe, grains of wheat, seeds of peas, lentils and beans were found. The homeland of rice is India and Indochina. Many wild forms of this plant have been found there. Relatively late, around the beginning of our era, rye appeared in Transcaucasia or Asia Minor, and a little earlier - oats. The homeland of corn and potatoes is South and Central America. We owe the appearance of cultivated varieties of tomatoes, capsicums, pumpkins, and beans to Peru and Mexico. Central America produced tobacco, and North America produced sunflower. Vegetables- cabbage, turnips, radishes, beets, carrots, onions - were known in ancient times and originate from the Mediterranean.

In the tropical countries of South America, sweet potatoes, pineapples and peanuts were cultivated. Indochina produced oranges, lemons and other citrus plants. Coffee comes from Ethiopia, where its wild ancestor still grows. Tea was introduced into culture in the mountainous regions of Burma. Cocoa was known in Mexico even before Europeans arrived there. Cocoa beans even played the role of money there.

In very distant times, man began to cultivate spinning plants. In Europe, flax was introduced into the culture, in China - hemp, in America and Asia - cotton.

Later, with the development of navigation, especially during the era of the Great Geographical Discoveries, the migration of cultivated plants from one continent to another began. Thus, corn, pumpkin, beans, tomatoes, peppers, sunflowers and tobacco migrated to Europe from America.

From year to year, from century to century, farmers, improving the methods of cultivating crops, simultaneously improved the plants themselves, selecting for sowing the seeds of the most productive of them or those with some particularly valuable property.

The gradual improvement of cultivated plants was not the work of one generation - it lasted for millennia. Agricultural tribes gradually settled across the Earth, and cultivated plants spread along with them. With the appearance and spread of cultivated plants on Earth, the living conditions of people changed. The emergence and development of agriculture led to a huge shift in the history of human society.

TO angiosperms, widely spread across to the globe, applies to most of our cultivated plants. What is their origin? Have cultivated plants always been the same as those grown in our time in gardens, orchards and fields? To get the answer, let's try to look into history.

Primitive people did not know how to grow plants. For days they wandered around in search of food. They collected fruits and berries of forest trees and shrubs, seeds of wild cereals, bulbs, tubers and rhizomes. They ate everything edible that they found in nature.

Scientists believe that people began cultivating plants about 10-15 thousand years ago.

The first plants - the ancestors of cultivated plants - apparently grew near human habitation. Most likely these were cereals that grew from seeds collected by primitive man and then randomly scattered on the soil. It could have been fruit plants, developed from the seeds of fruits eaten by humans.

Having noticed that many plants grow on the soil near their homes, people who lived in ancient times came to the conclusion that it was better to grow them near their homes than to look for them in forests and meadows. People began to sow seeds, protect seedlings, and pull out weeds.

Plants grew better near housing on soil containing humus than in natural conditions. For sowing, ancient farmers began to collect seeds from the best plants. Growing plants from such seeds contributed to the transformation of wild plants into cultivated plants.

Cultivated grains differed from wild grains in that they were larger grains. Fruit trees and shrubs have become tastier fruits. The edible roots became thicker and juicier.

Later, people specially studied selection, pursuing a specific goal. Some of them selected seeds from large-fruited plants to grow plants with even larger fruits. Others selected specimens whose fruits had the best taste. Still others were interested in plants with higher yields. As a result of this selection, different specimens of the same plant species are bred by people in different conditions, began to differ from each other. This is how varieties of cultivated plants appeared, which differ not only in their fruits, but also in terms of ripening, drought resistance, frost resistance and other qualities. The selection of plants carried out for the purpose of developing new varieties is calledselection.

Nowadays, each type of cultivated plant has many varieties. There are especially many varieties of the most ancient crops - wheat, barley, corn, rice. There are numerous varieties of vegetable plants, fruit trees and berries.

For example, in our country there are up to 1,500 varieties of apple trees. Among them are Antonovka, pear, and cinnamon.

Ivan Vladimirovich Michurin devoted his entire life to breeding new varieties of fruit and berry plants. He developed methods of plant crossing and selection to develop new varieties. Many varieties of apple trees bred by I.V. Michurin, for example Slavyanka, Kitayka golden early, Pepin saffron, Bellefleur-Chinese and many others, are distinguished not only by their yield and good qualities fruits, but also frost resistance.

Of great value are the new varieties of cultivated plants created by our country’s scientist-breeders in last years. Of these, new varieties of wheat, bred by Academician Pisarev, stand out. Highly oil-bearing sunflower varieties are famous, high-yielding varieties sugar beets, long-staple cotton varieties, hybrid varieties corn and others.

Cultivated plants are very different from their wild ancestors. These differences are especially noticeable in those organs for which a person cultivates the crop. For example, white cabbage is bred to produce heads of cabbage, which are highly overgrown apical buds of the cabbage plant. This differs white cabbage from wild Mediterranean cabbage, which does not form heads.

Potatoes are bred to produce tubers rich in starch. Large tubers of cultivated potato varieties differ from wild potato tubers, which are usually no larger than a walnut.

A huge variety of cultivated plants, thanks to which we today have a variety of tasty and healthy products nutrition, modern people taken for granted. Meanwhile, if we were in the Stone Age, we would not have found there large and juicy apples, sweet yellow bananas, or huge ears of corn. And we probably wouldn’t even recognize many wild plants that are the ancestors of modern cultivated ones. This post is about how cultivated plants have changed over the past hundreds and thousands of years thanks to selection methods and our ancestors.

1) Apple tree

This plant has been known to people since ancient times. There are several types of wild apple trees, common in Europe and Asia. Moreover, according to genetic studies, the ancestors of modern cultivated varieties are two species: the Sievers apple tree and the wild forest apple tree.

Sievers apple tree

Wild forest apple tree

Both of these species have small fruits (2 to 5 cm in size) and not the most pleasant taste. Sievers apples have a bitter taste, and the fruits of the wild forest apple tree are very sour. However, crossing and selection of these species led to the emergence of modern cultivars.

It is believed that the first to begin purposefully growing apple trees were the residents of Central Asia, who lived west of the Tien Shan Mountains, and this happened more than 2000 years ago. After the conquests of Alexander the Great, apple trees came to Greece, and from there they spread throughout Europe. The Greeks and Romans worked hard to develop new juicy and sweet varieties of apples.

Apples in Russia for a long time were almost the only fruit. Apple trees appeared in monastery gardens back in the 11th century, and in the 18th century, the Russian breeder Bolotov described about 600 varieties of apples.

2) Wheat, corn and other grains

Cereals have been known to people for a very long time, and it was with the cultivation of wheat, barley and other cereals that the Neolithic revolution began more than 10 thousand years ago. Wheat and barley are native to the Middle East; their cultivation probably began in the territory of modern Iraq and Turkey.

Wild barley

Wild species were noticeably different from modern cultivated ones. They had smaller grains and fewer of them per ear. But the main drawback was that the ripened grains immediately fell to the ground, so it was very difficult to collect them. Only over time were varieties developed that were convenient to harvest - reaping whole ears of corn along with grains, and then threshing them.

American Indians began growing corn more than 5,000 years ago. The exact ancestor of modern corn has not been established, but the closest one to it is wild plants- teosinte - looks like this:

Not only does it have few grains and they are small, but these grains also have a fairly hard shell.

3) Bananas

We know banana as a soft and sweet fruit. yellow color. But the wild ancestors of bananas were very different. These were small, green and hard fruits, also filled with seeds.

Wild bananas

However, people have found something useful in this fruit. Several thousand years ago, people began to grow bananas in South-East Asia, and then they gradually spread throughout the world.

Banana selection took quite a long time long time. Even the Spanish conquerors, who brought bananas to America 500 years ago, considered them food for slaves and animals. At this time, bananas were still inedible raw; they had to be boiled or fried. Only towards the end of the 19th century were modern varieties of bananas developed, which quickly became one of the favorite foods among residents of the United States and Europe.

4) Carrots

Wild carrots have long grown in vast areas of Eurasia. People ate the roots of this plant as food, but wild carrots are bitter and hard, so this vegetable was not popular. Carrots were known to the ancient Greeks and Romans, but were forgotten during the Middle Ages.

Wild carrots

Carrots returned to Europe from the East. It is believed that the place where modern varieties of carrots originate is the territory of modern Afghanistan; it was here that carrots began to be specially grown around the 10th century. In the 12th and 13th centuries, carrots again came to Europe. At this time the carrots were different colors- from white to purple. It was only in the 16th and 17th centuries that the familiar orange varieties of carrots with thick, sweet root vegetables were developed in Holland.

5) Watermelons

Watermelons are native to South-West Africa. The wild ancestors of modern watermelons still grow in the Kalahari Desert.

Wild watermelons in the desert

The fruits of wild watermelons are small - no more than 10 cm in size and taste bitter. Even 4000 years ago, the ancient Egyptians discovered them and began to grow them, although not for consumption, but to obtain oil from the seeds. The ancient Romans began to pickle watermelons and make jam from it.

Gradually, watermelons began to be grown in different countries. They became larger and sweeter, but back in the 17th century. watermelons were quite different from modern ones:

Watermelons in a painting by an Italian artist of the 17th century.

Russia made a significant contribution to the selection of watermelons, where the watermelon arrived back in the 13th century. After the fall of Astrakhan, the Caspian steppes became one of the main centers of watermelon breeding, where large, sweet and drought-resistant varieties were bred.

6) Peaches

As the name implies, peaches came to Russia and Europe from Persia. However, the birthplace of peaches is China, and these fruits began to be grown here 4,000 years ago.

This is what the wild ancestors of the peach looked like

Scientists are inclined to believe that modern peaches are the result of hybridization of several species, but the wild ancestors of the peach were very small with a large pit and a salty taste, and their size was only 2-3 cm. The modern peach is about 60 times larger (by weight) than its own wild predecessors.

7) Cucumbers

Cucumbers began to be grown in India a very long time ago, about 4-6 thousand years ago. The ancient Greeks and Romans grew cucumbers in large quantities and considered them a very healthy product. The details of cucumber breeding are unknown, but wild cucumbers still grow in large quantities in India.

Wild cucumbers

Wild cucumbers are small, bitter and very prickly. Locals their thickets are used to decorate fences and walls.

8) Cabbage

Cabbage is one of the few cultivated plants that originates not from some distant places, but from the territory of Europe.

Wild cabbage

Also, wild cabbage is quite edible and has a taste reminiscent of ordinary cultivated varieties. white cabbage. True, the leaves of this cabbage are tougher and, of course, do not form heads.

Cabbage began to be grown in Southern Europe more than 4 thousand years ago. The ancient Greeks and Romans were very fond of cabbage and believed that it could cure many diseases. Since ancient times, cabbage was also grown by the Slavs, for whom it was one of the main vegetable crops.

What's the end result? Sometimes there is an opinion that selection and artificial selection are something reminiscent of the methods of modern genetic engineering. Not really. Our ancestors, while breeding cultivated varieties, did not interfere with the genotype and crossed only closely related species with each other. So it’s quite the opposite - the above examples are examples of the success of traditional breeding methods, showing what can be achieved without the use of GMOs.

To learn about the mystery of the origin of cultivated plants means to reveal the processes that led to the enormous diversity in the existing cultivated flora.

Today, modern plant geneticists are accomplishing what would have been considered impossible just a hundred years ago by creating new, hybrid plants that have never existed before in nature.

It may seem unreal and incredible, but new type corn (Btcorn), is actually a combination of bacteria and normal corn already growing in the fields. Why were bacteria introduced into the genes of corn? Because Bacillus Thuringiensis helps the new hybrid 'planteria' repel worms.

How is a hybrid like Btcorn created? Geneticists extract genetic material from the bacteria, isolate certain parts of its DNA, and insert it into the DNA of corn. Then the desired transformation is achieved in tissue culture. Technically, such plants are called transgenic. Modified vegetables involve the transfer of DNA from one organism to another. Hybridization seeks to improve the plant, at least from a human perspective.

Most soybean plants grown in the world today have been genetically modified to survive the use of powerful herbicides. Btcorn corn is already widely grown and, as stated above, is engineered to produce its own organic pesticide, thereby making the plant poisonous to earworms. Growth hormone was isolated from bovine DNA and inserted into pigs to quickly increase their weight and reduce fat. Dolly, the first sheep to be cloned, has already paved the way for other biogenic animal cloning experiments.

What if we imagine that life on Earth did not originate as a result of random synthesis, but as a result of genetic engineering? In fact, this may be a likely scenario.

If you think that our modern historians, geneticists and biologists know the answers and can point to evidence showing how our primitive Stone Age ancestors domesticated wild plants, you have become a victim of a science game. That is, you must accept everything as it is, without further questions. However, the history of domestication is unclear, full of "missing links" and logical inconsistencies, although the public is under the impression that the history Agriculture doesn't keep any real secrets.

We are told, in our history and anthropology textbooks, that our ancient civilizations were born at the crossroads of an "agricultural revolution" that occurred near major river valleys. Textbooks are unable to tell us what our Stone Age predecessors collected and ate, what kind of wild grass seeds during their long sojourn in the Paleolithic era. Were they hunter gatherers? Why did they suddenly figure out how to domesticate plants and turn them into a major source of food around 5000 BC?

This raises some obvious and very tricky questions regarding the period of trial and error experimentation in development that led to the domestication of wild wheat into bread and wild corn into domestic varieties.

Let's start with the mystery of the modern corn plant. The origins of corn remain mysterious because wild plant ancestors have never been found. It's established, scientific fact that corn is a cultigen, an engineered plant. This means that the plant cannot reproduce naturally and is entirely dependent on constant cultivation by humans. In short, it is an artificial plant and has been around for a long time. Scientists have been unable to trace the ancestry of corn from wild plants. How can this be if the "agricultural revolution" happened 7-8,000 years ago?

Corn is a form of wild grass, like most other large cultivated plants, there is no reason for the ancestors to become extinct and/or extinct. 10,000 years may seem like a very long time in human terms, but it is very a short time in terms of the evolution and lifespan of plant species. There are ancient plants that have existed continuously for hundreds of millions of years.

If you believe that our ancestors domesticated wild plants, you have to assume that people without any agricultural experience did fantastic things in selecting wild seeds to turn them into staple crops. This historical fact that, despite 5,000 years of continuous agricultural development, we cannot grow a new large crop from wild species. How brilliant were the Stone Age forerunners who performed this agronomic feat without agricultural or genetic knowledge?

Research into the mystery of the origin of cultivated plants continues.