Spaghetti for lunch, fresh broccoli from the market, and corn on the cob for BBQ! How natural – right?

Crop domestication is paradigm to show how difficult it can be to distinguish natural from artificial. Cultivated plants are the result of breeding, a targeted evolution of wild plants, so to speak. Does this make bread and cauliflower artificial? How did bread wheat, one of the most important staple foods, emerge over the millennia? What is the difference between the corn on our plate and its wild ancestors? And why do scientists research these plant properties in the laboratory?

Join us for an exciting journey to discover the evolution of cultivated plants, explore characteristics of domestication under the microscope, and find out more about how evolution impacts our daily life in the adjacent exhibition ‘evolution happens!’.

Spaghetti for lunch, fresh broccoli from the market, and corn on the cob for BBQ! How natural – right?

Crop domestication is paradigm to show how difficult it can be to distinguish natural from artificial. Cultivated plants are the result of breeding, a targeted evolution of wild plants, so to speak. Does this make bread and cauliflower artificial? How did bread wheat, one of the most important staple foods, emerge over the millennia? What is the difference between the corn on our plate and its wild ancestors? And why do scientists research these plant properties in the laboratory?

Join us for an exciting journey to discover the evolution of cultivated plants, explore characteristics of domestication under the microscope, and find out more about how evolution impacts our daily life in the adjacent exhibition ‘evolution happens!’.