Earliest known carrots date as far back as the 10th century when they used to be found in Persia and Asia Minor. The seeds made their way as far as Europe about 5,000 years ago and it is still found today in temperate regions. Wild Carrots originally were purple or white with a thin, forked root.
It is widely reckoned that the modern day orange carrot was developed by crossing the mutated yellow and white rooted carrots as well as varieties of wild carrots, which are quite distinct from cultivated varieties. Also, the modern day variety of Carrot wasn’t cultivated until Dutch growers in the 16th century took mutant strains of the purple carrot and gradually developed them into the sweet, plump, orange variety we have today. (Source)
Domestication of Maize serves as a remarkable example of Selective Breeding. Natural Corn was first domesticated in 7,000 BC when it was dry like a potato. Teosinte (a barely edible plant) has been confirmed as the wild ancestor of Maize. Both Maize and Teosinte were found to be similar at the DNA level. They had the same number of chromosomes and similar arrangement of genes.
Such is the similarity that teosinte can cross-breed with modern maize varieties to form maize-teosinte hybrids that can go on to reproduce naturally. Today, Corn is 1,000 times larger than it’s previous version 9000 years ago and much easier to peel and grow. Sugar content makes up 6.6% of the crop while it stood at 1.9% in the Natural corn as per James Kennedy- a Chemistry teacher. (Source)
Wild Peach or Natural Peach were first domesticated in 4,000 BC by ancient Chinese, who, upon tasting them, informed they tasted earthy and salty-like a “lentil” as per James Kennedy- a Chemistry teacher. The fruits, then, had very little flesh to consume as roughage and the size of Natural Peach stood at 25 mm. A point worth mentioning is that only 64% of the fruit was edible at that time.
The Natural Peach underwent multiple generations of Selective Breeding to produce the same fruit, but with a size that was 64 times bigger than the original fruit, 27% juicier and 4% sweeter. The largest peach to be recognized by the Guinness Book of World Records was 2.5 inches to 3 inches in diameter. (Source)
