THE MILLENNIA-OLD process of domesticating crops has consisted of selecting, season after season, the strongest performers for a variety of necessary traits: weather- and pest-resistance, productivity, flavour, or beauty. The price that plants often paid for such improvements was their dependence on farmers to collect and replant seed. And so between cultivators and cultivar there grew a symbiotic relationship – each adapted to its environment, each dependent on the other for survival. Meanwhile, as the global economic machine has advanced across landscapes, the wild relatives of our domesticated ...
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