# Most recently domesticated food plants **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [October 30, 2021, 3:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-recently-domesticated-food-plants/953507 "2021-10-30T03:54:48Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 17\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![hogarth](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hogarth/32/1773_2.png) [@hogarth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/hogarth)\ **Post date:** [October 30, 2021, 2:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-recently-domesticated-food-plants/953507/21 "2021-10-30T14:56:45Z")
> [@puzzlegal](#): > > A new group of cold-Hardy cherries, the first of which was released in 1999. The University of Saskatchewan has also been working on haskap berries. Wikipedia says those have been cultivated in Russia since the 1950s. > **[Lonicera caerulea](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lonicera_caerulea)** > > Lonicera caerulea, also known by its common names blue honeysuckle, sweetberry honeysuckle, fly honeysuckle (blue fly honeysuckle), blue-berried honeysuckle, or the honeyberry, is a non-climbing honeysuckle native throughout the cool temperate Northern Hemisphere regions of North America, Europe, and Asia. > The plant or its fruit has also come to be called haskap, derived from its name in the language of the native Ainu people of Hokkaido, Japan. > Haskap is a deciduous shrub growing to 1.5–2 m... ---
**Author:** ![Folly](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/folly/32/3219_2.png) [@Folly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Folly)\ **Post date:** [October 30, 2021, 3:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-recently-domesticated-food-plants/953507/22 "2021-10-30T15:48:22Z")
> [@MrDibble](#): > > [Finger limes](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Citrus_australasica), I’d say the 1990s is recent. They used to be just bushfood, but now they’re planted and new cultivars being developed and all the other hallmarks of domestication. That’s awesome. It’s like a plant that manufactures lime popping bobas. ---
**Author:** ![Saint\_Cad](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/saint_cad/32/18907_2.png) [@Saint\_Cad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Saint_Cad)\ **Post date:** [October 30, 2021, 4:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-recently-domesticated-food-plants/953507/23 "2021-10-30T16:01:42Z")
> [@naita](#): > > I’m not sure they do. I concur. I believe the OP is making a distinction between wild plants that are grown deliberately and those that have been genetically modified (through breeding or artificial means) to be more easily grown with the goal of a cash crop. ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [October 30, 2021, 4:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-recently-domesticated-food-plants/953507/24 "2021-10-30T16:53:11Z")
Did you not follow Shakester’s wiki link? It has a timeline - including cited stuff like: > **1888** > > The first commercial orchard of macadamias was planted at Rous Mill, 12 km from [Lismore, New South Wales](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lismore,_New_South_Wales), by Charles Staff. ---
**Author:** ![bump](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7c8e57/32.png) [@bump](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bump)\ **Post date:** [October 30, 2021, 5:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-recently-domesticated-food-plants/953507/25 "2021-10-30T17:12:01Z")
> [@dtilque](#): > > the pecan became a crop in the 1880s. What makes for a domesticated pecan? I mean, there are ‘native’ pecans (meaning wild indigenous ones here in Texas), and commercial cultivars, and they’re pretty easy to tell apart (the native ones are a lot smaller and harder shelled). But they all taste about the same, and the trees aren’t easily told apart without actual nuts falling from them. But what makes the others domesticated? There’s some sort of threshold where something beyond just garden-variety selective breeding takes place to make a crop “domesticated”, right? ---
**Author:** ![Treppenwitz](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/treppenwitz/32/3445_2.png) [@Treppenwitz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Treppenwitz)\ **Post date:** [October 30, 2021, 7:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-recently-domesticated-food-plants/953507/26 "2021-10-30T19:32:14Z")
Samphire is an interesting example. It has been collected wild for centuries, but cultivation is a new thing. I haven’t been able to pin down a date, but I found an interesting paper from 2016 (spoilered here because it’s PDF-ish [paper](https://www.academia.edu/34515622/Cultivating_Salicornia_europaea_Marsh_Samphire_), you can kust scroll down to read the paper) which states: [![Google Photos](https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/Bnx5p8wSjtPUZtzNW4K24z2QUwX-12vwnG3ccWjeLZM2TsPT7i7WRt7B9nYAok8vNbnhr4mGma02EwgrI8UQ7uADduYsugq8rUHxgwgSox2hiPXS8alvzOjnafzqGySTlOD0cB9N1w=w571-h159-p-k "New item by j") ](https://photos.app.goo.gl/oLm423xXvP4ARr9a6) It goes on to talk about commercial scale production in Israel by 2013 (a publication date). So for a domestication date: ongoing? Samphire wiki: > **[Samphire](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samphire)** > > Pages for logged out editors learn more > > > > Samphire is a name given to a number of succulent salt-tolerant plants (halophytes) that tend to be associated with water bodies. > Following the construction of the Channel Tunnel, the nature reserve created on new land near Folkestone made from excavated rock was named "Samphire Hoe". j ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [October 30, 2021, 10:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-recently-domesticated-food-plants/953507/27 "2021-10-30T22:24:38Z")
Speaking of Sasketchewan, are Saskatoon berries, AKA serviceberries, cultivated for food anywhere? I’ve seen them cultivated, but only as ornamentals: I’ve never seen the berries for sale anywhere. ---
**Author:** ![dtilque](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/d6d6ee/32.png) [@dtilque](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dtilque)\ **Post date:** [October 31, 2021, 12:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-recently-domesticated-food-plants/953507/28 "2021-10-31T00:31:04Z")
> [@thorny\_locust](#): > > The berries are somewhat different: domestic blueberries are larger, and overall have a blander flavor, though some domestic varieties have a flavor nearly as good as the wild ones. You can buy wild blueberries in stores. At least dried ones. And even dried, they taste better than the farmed ones. > [@Saint\_Cad](#): > > I believe the OP is making a distinction between wild plants that are grown deliberately and those that have been genetically modified (through breeding or artificial means) to be more easily grown with the goal of a cash crop. They don’t have to be genetically different than the wild ones, although they usually are. Domestication is really a matter of being about to grow lots of the crop consistently. In the case of blueberries, it was soil conditions but other plants may have other issues. > [@MrDibble](#): > > Did you not follow Shakester’s wiki link? No I didn’t. I found some other sites about the domestication of macadamias. They didn’t mention domestication in Australia, just Hawaii. > [@bump](#): > > What makes for a domesticated pecan? In the case of pecans, they have to be grafted. If you plant the seeds from a tree that’s producing nuts that are good, you won’t get more trees just like it. The first person to successfully graft pecans was a Black person named Antoine. This was in Louisiana in the 1840s, so he was a slave and we don’t know much about him. However, pecans did not become a widely grown crop until the 1880s. > **[The Slave Gardener Who Turned the Pecan Into a Cash Crop | Essay | Zócalo...](https://www.zocalopublicsquare.org/slave-gardener-turned-pecan-cash-crop/)** > > Pecan trees, armored with scaly, gray bark and waving their green leaves in the breeze, grow in neat, uniform rows upon the Southern U.S. landscape and ---
**Author:** ![JWT\_Kottekoe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/3ec8ea/32.png) [@JWT\_Kottekoe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JWT_Kottekoe)\ **Post date:** [October 31, 2021, 12:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-recently-domesticated-food-plants/953507/29 "2021-10-31T00:37:50Z")
I don’t know if is domesticated, as in selectively bred to be substantially different from the wild variety, but wild rice is an interesting (and tasty) example. It has been harvested by Native Americans for centuries, but commercial cultivation began in the 1950’s, [according to Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wild_rice). Of course the wild variety has undoubtedly changed considerably from its progenitors before humans began harvesting it. ---
**Author:** ![puzzlegal](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/puzzlegal/32/3827_2.png) [@puzzlegal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/puzzlegal)\ **Post date:** [October 31, 2021, 1:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-recently-domesticated-food-plants/953507/30 "2021-10-31T01:39:52Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > Speaking of Sasketchewan, are Saskatoon berries, AKA serviceberries, cultivated for food anywhere? I’ve seen them cultivated, but only as ornamentals: I’ve never seen the berries for sale anywhere. I don’t know if the berries are sold commercially, but there are several cultivars on the market that are advertised for the quality of their fruit. > **[Juneberries](https://www.slngrow.com/collections/juneberries-1)** > > In Canada they are known as “Saskatoons.” Plant breeders have worked with Juneberries (the native shrub is sometimes called Serviceberry or Shadblow) since the early 1900's, breeding for size and quality of fruit and for higher production. Similar to... ---
**Author:** ![bump](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7c8e57/32.png) [@bump](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bump)\ **Post date:** [October 31, 2021, 2:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-recently-domesticated-food-plants/953507/31 "2021-10-31T02:06:08Z")
Is that actually domestication though? I thought with plants, it had more to do with breeding them for keeping traits that were well adapted for agriculture, but not necessarily so great in the wild. Stuff like seed heads not shattering easily, larger kernels, and so on versus the wild variety. Just grafting branches from the right pecan trees onto other ones doesn’t seem to really fall in that category like the others do- it’s just mechanically propagating the wood from wild trees that happen to have characteristics you like. ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [October 31, 2021, 6:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-recently-domesticated-food-plants/953507/32 "2021-10-31T06:50:23Z")
> [@dtilque](#): > > No I didn’t. I found some other sites about the domestication of macadamias. They didn’t mention domestication in Australia, just Hawaii. Are you saying you don’t think the 1888 plantings cited happened because other sites (which you haven’t cited, so I can’t tell if they’re all citing the Hawaiian Macadamia Propaganda Dept…) don’t mention them? Otherwise, what’s your point? ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [October 31, 2021, 7:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-recently-domesticated-food-plants/953507/33 "2021-10-31T07:00:07Z")
> [@bump](#): > > Is that actually domestication though? [Domestication](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4371924/) (for plants) can be merely the deliberate planting and care: > Domestication is a sustained multigenerational, mutualistic relationship in which one organism assumes a significant degree of influence over the reproduction and care of another organism in order to secure a more predictable supply of a resource of interest, and through which the partner organism gains advantage over individuals that remain outside this relationship, thereby benefitting and often increasing the fitness of both the domesticator and the target domesticate. The breeding for traits is a common aspect, but it’s not necessary. Domestication starts as soon as the seed/shoots of any particular individual plant are singled out for replanting, and the resultant plantings cared for while growing. What’s important is the mutualistic relationship between the plant and planter. I definitely think that qualifies in the case of grafted pecans. ---
**Author:** ![dtilque](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/d6d6ee/32.png) [@dtilque](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dtilque)\ **Post date:** [October 31, 2021, 9:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-recently-domesticated-food-plants/953507/34 "2021-10-31T09:52:51Z")
> [@MrDibble](#): > > Are you saying you don’t think the 1888 plantings cited happened because other sites (which you haven’t cited, so I can’t tell if they’re all citing the Hawaiian Macadamia Propaganda Dept…) don’t mention them? Otherwise, what’s your point? You asked if I’d read his cite. My answer was no, because I’d read other pages which I thought covered the entire history of macadamia domestication. Obviously I was wrong about that. ---
**Author:** ![thorny\_locust](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thorny_locust/32/431_2.png) [@thorny\_locust](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/thorny_locust)\ **Post date:** [October 31, 2021, 1:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-recently-domesticated-food-plants/953507/35 "2021-10-31T13:17:01Z")
> [@puzzlegal](#): > > > [@Chronos](#): > > > > Speaking of Sasketchewan, are Saskatoon berries, AKA serviceberries, cultivated for food anywhere? I’ve seen them cultivated, but only as ornamentals: I’ve never seen the berries for sale anywhere. > > I don’t know if the berries are sold commercially Cornell’s been talking them up as a good new crop for small farms in the Northeast USA. > **[Juneberries – They Go Where Blueberries Can’t - Cornell Small Farms](https://smallfarms.cornell.edu/2011/10/juneberries-they-go-where-blueberries-cant/)** > > Many small farm operators and fruit enthusiasts see blueberries as Plan A.  We all know that blueberries are popular, tasty, and they practically market That link says they’re grown commercially on 3,200 acres in Canada. (Not all in one lump; that’s on 900 different farms.) ---
**Author:** ![puzzlegal](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/puzzlegal/32/3827_2.png) [@puzzlegal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/puzzlegal)\ **Post date:** [October 31, 2021, 2:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-recently-domesticated-food-plants/953507/36 "2021-10-31T14:15:09Z")
The berries are very tasty. But i really like blueberries. And they look like blueberries. And if I’m expecting blueberries i am disappointed. But on their own, they are a very nice crop. I often pick and eat them when i come across them. I planted one, but my yard has a lot of ceder apple rust (which they are susceptible to, being related to apples) and even ignoring that birds eat the berries, they don’t take work where i live. ---
**Author:** ![Pardel-Lux](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pardel-lux/32/20182_2.png) [@Pardel-Lux](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pardel-Lux)\ **Post date:** [October 31, 2021, 3:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-recently-domesticated-food-plants/953507/37 "2021-10-31T15:19:16Z")
Something that is difficult to grow commercially are mushrooms: some species have a mutuallistic relationship whit something else, usually a tree that has to grow for ages before the mushrooms start to bud, and can be extremely fussy about a lot of conditions. Research is going on right now and more and more species are being developed commercially on a regular basis. [Paul Stamets](https://www.amazon.com/-/de/dp/1580081754/ref=sr_1_3?__mk_de_DE=%C3%85M%C3%85%C5%BD%C3%95%C3%91&crid=2U44PUOQR4N7H&dchild=1&keywords=growing+mushrooms&qid=1635693228&sprefix=growing+mus%2Caps%2C258&sr=8-3) has written the most complete book about it. Of course, mushrooms are not plants. They are funghi. But humans are trying to cultivate them, so I thought they fit in here. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-recently-domesticated-food-plants/953507.md?page=1)