Garden update and a little history of Agriculture

On Tuesday I planted more plants. I got the seeds for my cilantro and my basil, and I will say, basil seeds are not easy to get out of their little containers that they come in off of the basil plant. Meanwhile some of my plants are spouting! In order from the top down they are the beans, sunflowers, scallions and the tomato plants. The zucchini and the marigolds have not sprouted yet.

In class we covered a little bit of the history of plants and plant improvement.

We have evidence that agriculture began around 8000-9000 B.C., and human beings having been shaping the genetic structure of crops ever since. Originally, this was through us using natural selection to our advantage by only breeding the plants that had the highest yield, resistance to diseases and pests, forage quality, and ability to stand up to harsh weather. Today we can include the ability to include into mechanization and flavor. Today we can pick out the individual traits that we want in plants and transfer them into others by picking apart their chromosomes. This has lead to the modern GMO plants. Today we genetically engineer super plants that far surpass the original plants of our ancestors. It is weird to think that thousands of years of artificial and natural selection have created the tomato plant on my garden today!