Ye olde massive teosinte
January 8, 2026 at 3:53 PM
Ye olde massive teosinte
October 1, 2026 at 9:14 AM
I love showing students photos of teosinte.
July 1, 2025 at 6:52 PM
I love showing students photos of teosinte.
Corn's ancestor "teosinte" is a type of wild grass
www.reddit.com/r/interestin...
www.reddit.com/r/interestin...
October 1, 2026 at 7:56 AM
Corn's ancestor "teosinte" is a type of wild grass
www.reddit.com/r/interestin...
www.reddit.com/r/interestin...
yeah you never hear about Children of the Teosinte
November 19, 2025 at 7:03 AM
yeah you never hear about Children of the Teosinte
Isn't that Vavilov with teosinte in the pic?
January 23, 2025 at 10:18 PM
Isn't that Vavilov with teosinte in the pic?
Davis, where nobody looks at you weirdly if you’re biking into work with an endangered perennial teosinte
September 22, 2026 at 7:59 PM
Davis, where nobody looks at you weirdly if you’re biking into work with an endangered perennial teosinte
Anyway, Zea mays is actually a grass, and the domestication of the wild plant Teosinte into what we know now as corn or maize started around 9000 years ago in Mexico. If you look up teosinte “ears”, they’re pinky-sized with only a few kernels
August 14, 2026 at 12:25 AM
Anyway, Zea mays is actually a grass, and the domestication of the wild plant Teosinte into what we know now as corn or maize started around 9000 years ago in Mexico. If you look up teosinte “ears”, they’re pinky-sized with only a few kernels
Corn evolved from a Mexican grass called Teosinte. Teosinte seeds are protected by a shell as hard as a walnut. However, around 9000 years ago a single genetic mutation changed a protein regulating formation of these shells. This turned the plant inside out and formed the cob.
August 27, 2024 at 12:09 PM
Corn evolved from a Mexican grass called Teosinte. Teosinte seeds are protected by a shell as hard as a walnut. However, around 9000 years ago a single genetic mutation changed a protein regulating formation of these shells. This turned the plant inside out and formed the cob.
People think I don’t do field work. But see here’s me in a field of teosinte
October 18, 2025 at 1:44 AM
People think I don’t do field work. But see here’s me in a field of teosinte
The teosinte to maize pipeline
March 21, 2025 at 2:31 PM
The teosinte to maize pipeline
truly domesticating teosinte to such an extent that it provided an excellent habitat for monsters was a mistake
yeah you never hear about Children of the Teosinte
November 19, 2025 at 7:08 AM
truly domesticating teosinte to such an extent that it provided an excellent habitat for monsters was a mistake
CORN THAT FUCKS
we need a teosinte cousin for this sexy lady
we need a teosinte cousin for this sexy lady
July 23, 2026 at 3:45 PM
CORN THAT FUCKS
we need a teosinte cousin for this sexy lady
we need a teosinte cousin for this sexy lady
Happy to see this out! @reginafairbanks.bsky.social analysis of perhaps the most famous maize domestication locus, teosinte glume architecture 1, which controls much of the change from the enclosed fruitcase (top) in teosinte to the "naked" grains of maize (bottom) www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/... 1/2
June 17, 2025 at 9:42 PM
Happy to see this out! @reginafairbanks.bsky.social analysis of perhaps the most famous maize domestication locus, teosinte glume architecture 1, which controls much of the change from the enclosed fruitcase (top) in teosinte to the "naked" grains of maize (bottom) www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/... 1/2
The average teosinte genome is both 1) bigger than the maize reference and 2) missing 10 Arabidopsis genomes worth of sequence present in the reference maize genome.
Structural variation is a ^$%&*^$@
Structural variation is a ^$%&*^$@
July 9, 2026 at 11:15 PM
The average teosinte genome is both 1) bigger than the maize reference and 2) missing 10 Arabidopsis genomes worth of sequence present in the reference maize genome.
Structural variation is a ^$%&*^$@
Structural variation is a ^$%&*^$@
Teosinte alleles enhance nitrogen assimilation and seed protein in maize
From: www.nature.com/articles/s41...
#PlantScience Preserving, sequencing, and studying wild relatives of crops still very informative and powerful today.
From: www.nature.com/articles/s41...
#PlantScience Preserving, sequencing, and studying wild relatives of crops still very informative and powerful today.
Teosinte alleles enhance nitrogen assimilation and seed protein in maize - Nature
Teosinte alleles enhance nitrogen assimilation and seed protein without lowering crop yield when expressed in modern maize, providing a powerful strategy for crop improvement to meet future population...
www.nature.com
June 4, 2026 at 12:11 PM
Teosinte alleles enhance nitrogen assimilation and seed protein in maize
From: www.nature.com/articles/s41...
#PlantScience Preserving, sequencing, and studying wild relatives of crops still very informative and powerful today.
From: www.nature.com/articles/s41...
#PlantScience Preserving, sequencing, and studying wild relatives of crops still very informative and powerful today.
Unlike its wild ancestor teosinte, maize lost much of its seed protein during domestication. A paper @nature discovers teosinte genes that, when expressed in modern maize, increase seed protein without lowering crop yield. shorturl.at/zdsvY
&
highlight @natplants.nature.com:
shorturl.at/e3f6C
&
highlight @natplants.nature.com:
shorturl.at/e3f6C
Teosinte alleles enhance nitrogen assimilation and seed protein in maize - Nature
Teosinte alleles enhance nitrogen assimilation and seed protein without lowering crop yield when expressed in modern maize, providing a powerful strategy for crop improvement to meet future population demands.
shorturl.at
June 3, 2026 at 5:00 PM
Unlike its wild ancestor teosinte, maize lost much of its seed protein during domestication. A paper @nature discovers teosinte genes that, when expressed in modern maize, increase seed protein without lowering crop yield. shorturl.at/zdsvY
&
highlight @natplants.nature.com:
shorturl.at/e3f6C
&
highlight @natplants.nature.com:
shorturl.at/e3f6C
Every time I teach about GMOs:
May 1, 2025 at 12:50 PM
Every time I teach about GMOs:
Corn's ancestor "teosinte" is a type of wild grass
October 1, 2026 at 8:58 AM
Corn's ancestor "teosinte" is a type of wild grass
Teosinte could never. 🌱
September 6, 2025 at 2:44 AM
Teosinte could never. 🌱
Obviously we didn't know the exact mechanisms. But you don't get corn out of teosinte without a very thorough working knowledge of what will actually happen when you breed strain A to strain B.
September 30, 2026 at 12:31 PM
Obviously we didn't know the exact mechanisms. But you don't get corn out of teosinte without a very thorough working knowledge of what will actually happen when you breed strain A to strain B.
thanks also for making corn out of teosinte
There aren’t enough words to express my thanks to the generations of Indigenous Americans who cultivated potatoes into the tastiest thing on earth.
August 23, 2024 at 12:02 AM
thanks also for making corn out of teosinte
Endangered wild perennial teosinte. Male and female inflorescences visible. Unhappy because it’s cold in Davis — dies to ground and comes back each year.
January 26, 2025 at 1:15 AM
Endangered wild perennial teosinte. Male and female inflorescences visible. Unhappy because it’s cold in Davis — dies to ground and comes back each year.
new preprint from the lab! Elli Cryan, coadvised but the inimitable @spicybotrytis.bsky.social, does a deep dive into the GA incompatibility loci in maize, finding complex haplotypes, overturning evolutionary origins, and discovering a paramutation system! A 🧵
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
Molecular evolution of a reproductive barrier in maize and related species
Three cross-incompatibility loci each control a distinct reproductive barrier in domesticated maize ( Zea mays ssp. mays ) and its wild teosinte relatives. These three loci, Teosinte crossing barrier ...
www.biorxiv.org
December 3, 2024 at 9:56 PM
new preprint from the lab! Elli Cryan, coadvised but the inimitable @spicybotrytis.bsky.social, does a deep dive into the GA incompatibility loci in maize, finding complex haplotypes, overturning evolutionary origins, and discovering a paramutation system! A 🧵
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...