Cultivated plants are so firmly entrenched in human life that few people wonder where the history of their cultivation began. Eating vegetables and fruits as food, a person does not wonder what their wild relatives look like and how great the variety of cultivated plants is.
Historical facts
Almost all cultivated plants known today have their historical roots, which determine the centers of their appearance and gradual transformation.
The origin of cultivated plants is attributed to 50,000-60,000 years BC. e. Before this period, picking plants was a way of survival of the tribe, which was the responsibility of women. Historical evidence that people began to select large and healthy grains and fruits in order to grow them near their dwellings are ancient utensils, pots with supplies in burials and their drawings.
Today, of the most popular 640 species of cultivated plants, it is known that about 400 of them came from South Asia, 50 from Africa, more than 100 from South and North America, and the rest from Europe.
Interesting facts about a cultivated plant, such as wheat, indicate that cereals were the first species that people began to consciously grow near houses. Confirmation of this statement are the oldest mortars and pestles found in the places of settlement of cavemen.
Plant Cultivation Centers
In the 20th century, scientists were able to more fully determine where modern types of cultivated plants came to us from. Even N. I. Vavilov divided the geography of crop production into 7 zones:
- So, South Asia became the progenitor of 33% of domesticated species. Cultivated plants (examples can be found in the works of Vavilov), such as rice, sugarcane, cucumbers, eggplant and many others, came to us from there.
- East Asia has given us 20% of cultivated species such as soybean, millet, cherry, buckwheat.
- The southwestern part of Asia is home to wheat, rye, legumes, and turnip, which makes up 4% of plants.
- 11% of the known cultivated plants belong to the Mediterranean. These are garlic, grapes, carrots, cabbage, pear, lentils and others.
- Ethiopia has become home to 4% of species, including chickpeas, barley, and coffee tree.
- Central America gave the world corn, pumpkin, tobacco, cocoa.
- South America owns potatoes, coca, oki, a hindu tree.
The wild relatives of all these plants can still be found. Interesting facts about the cultivated plant do not end there.
The selection of ancient people
One can hardly call cavemen or later types of human development breeders, but they had some skills in selecting and growing plants.
Archaeologists have come to the conclusion that farming and a settled lifestyle as a way of survival became applicable 10,000 years ago. This period is considered the beginning of the cultivation of plants. In fact, cultivated plants (examples of which archaeologists find on the sites of ancient sites) began to be bred long before that.
As scientists suggest, the collected wild cereal, stone berries and other types of plants grew near the sites of ancient people when they sprinkled grain or threw seeds with scraps. It was customary for the women of the tribe to pluck weeds near such "plantations", which has survived to this day.
Gradually, a man began to select the roots, grains and seeds of the most delicious and large fruits and purposefully plant them near his homes. Thus, agriculture was born, which gave impetus to a new level of human development.
The variety of cultivated plants today
In our time, selection has become a science that works not only on the yield of cultivated plants, but also on their taste and increased survival. Almost all types of vegetables, fruits and cereals that a modern person eats are hybrid, that is, derived artificially.
Interesting facts about the cultivated plant, which was subjected not only to selection, but to cross with other species, is that a completely new organism is obtained that has no analogues in nature.
The mixtures artificially bred in laboratories are one-time seed, but thanks to them, the number of tasty, giving a high yield of cultivated plants has increased hundreds of times.
Today, hybridity has affected both crops and fruits, and vegetables that are well known to us, such as tomatoes, peppers, cucumbers and many others.
Cultivated Cucumbers
The cultivated plant of cucumber is so familiar on our table, both fresh and canned, that we do not ask the question "where did it come from?"
It turns out that the path of the cucumber to our table was rather big, since India and China are its homeland. 6,000 years ago, this vegetable was cultivated, although its ancient relatives still grow in Indian forests, like creepers, twisting tree trunks, and they are also used for landscaping fences and hedges.
On frescoes in Ancient Egypt, and then Ancient Greece, this vegetable was depicted on the tables of rich people and for a long time was available only to high-ranking persons.
The Greeks brought cucumbers to Europe, and their distribution became rapid due to their taste and the ability to pickle for the future for the winter. Today, this vegetable is available to everyone and everywhere. Each gardener considers it his duty to grow a good crop of cucumbers, for which both varietal and hybrid varieties are used.
Cultivation of indoor plants
People appreciated plants not only for the ability to eat them, but also for their healing properties, as well as their beauty. Interesting facts about a cultivated plant, which from a wild state has become a standard of beauty and tenderness, relate to roses.
The rose has become a symbolic flower in many nations in ancient times. So, according to Indian legends, Lakshmi, the goddess of beauty, was born in a rose bud. Poets in various countries and at all times dedicated poetry to her, and her tropical Southeast Asia was her homeland. It was from there that the cultivated plant rose moved to Ancient Greece, where it was called the flower of Aphrodite. In ancient Rome they even set greenhouses for roses so that they bloomed year-round.
Today, hundreds of varieties of this plant are known, bred by breeders for flower growers around the world.
Modern roses are grown in open ground, in pots on window sills, in greenhouses and winter greenhouses. They make tasty and healthy jam, and rose oil is considered one of the most expensive, since 500 kg of petals are used to get one kilogram.
Cultivated fruit
Like cereals and vegetables, fruits became the object of cultivation among ancient people. The beneficial properties of berry and fruit plants, as well as the ability to store them in dried or soaked form have made them permanent objects of pantries. The most famous of the fruits are apples, wild relatives of which are found in the layers of the Cretaceous period, and dates. Today, many fruit trees, which 200-300 years ago were considered foreign, grow habitually in orchards on personal plots.
The future of cultivated plants
Breeders all over the world are still working in their laboratories to create new plant crops that can take root in unusual conditions for them and give unprecedented crops.
Thanks to their efforts, cultivated plants better tolerate changes in climate, depletion of the soil layer of the Earth and at the same time give good yields.
Many cultivated plants began to produce two crops per year or per season, since they received hybrid hardening. This gives hope that in the future, on our tables will be fresh vegetables and fruits, whose homeland individual countries have long ceased to be, and the whole world has become.