Centers of Domestication
This continent gave us coffee (it’s not South America!)
What is Africa?
Domesticated in the Andes, this underground tuber is related to tomatoes and peppers.
Though commonly used for Zea mays, this English word originally referred to grains like wheat, oats, and barley.
What is corn?
Proteins are made of these building blocks.
What are amino acids?
While amylose molecules are unbranched, this type of starch molecule is highly branched.
What is amylopectin?
This continent is the ancestral home of chocolate or cacao.
What is South America?
With two separate species domesticated in Asia (and one in Africa), this grain is the #1 staple food of billions worldwide.
What is rice?
Inside a maize kernel, the plant embryo is nourished by this oily, starchy tissue.
What is endosperm?
This plant family commonly forms root nodules that host nitrogen-fixing bacteria.
What is Fabaceae or the legume family?
From 1845 to 1852, the pathogenic microorganism Phytopthora infestans caused catastrophic crop failure and famine in what country?
What is Ireland?
Cranberries are native to this continent.
What is North America?
85% of this crop -- which supplies the world's #1 plant-based oil -- comes from Malaysia and Indonesia.
What is oil palm (or palm oil)?
This is the #1 use of maize grown in the U.S.
What is animal feed?
Elemental nitrogen is fixed into bioavailable compounds by these soil bacteria.
What are rhizobia?
What starchy staple is also known as manioc, yuca, and tapioca?
What is cassava?
Millions of acres of soybeans are grown in North America, but they originally came from here.
What is China (or East Asia)?
This "musical fruit" hails from Central and South America and helps boost nitrogen levels in the soil.
What is beans?
This wild grass is the ancestor of domesticated maize.
What is teosinte?
DAILY DOUBLE!
DAILY DOUBLE!
Americans call them yams, but these tuberous roots aren't related to the true Dioscorea yams of Africa and Asia.
What are sweet potatoes?
Sandwiched between the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers, this region is known for the earliest complex societies and large cities founded on intensive agriculture.
What is Mesopotamia (or the Fertile Crescent)?
Incarcerated men at the notorious Angola Prison in Louisiana harvest this crop to make a sweet syrup.
What is sugarcane?
Made into plastics, sweeteners, and more, this type of maize accounts for the majority of the maize crop grown in the U.S.
What is dent corn?
Although it's more closely related to peas than to wheat or quinoa, this seed was a staple pseudograin of indigenous Australians.
What is wattleseed?
Used like potatoes, these North American native tubers are related to sunflowers.
What are Jerusalem artichokes (or sunchokes)?