"Dee Flint" wrote:

Other than corn, the wild ancestors of our domestic grains still exist.
They happen to be a useable size in their wild form.

Add they are still in use to make hay for livestock. Hay
fields are far less selective about species.

The primitives
gathered everything that was edible, fruits, veggies, SEEDS (which grains
generally happen to be), and nuts.

Once it was discovered that plants grow from seeds,
deliberate planting started. Once it was understood
that "like parent like child" applied to humans, animals
and plants, deliberate selective breeding began. Even
before deliberate selective breeding farming processes
did put some pressure on unifomity - Kill the animal
that bolts out of the herd and the result is breeding
for docility. Harvest all at once and plant from that
harvest and the result is breeding for all ripening
together. Neither of those features are bred for in the
wild.

Corn is a real mystery as it is unclear how it might have developed. *No one
has yet figured out what it came from.

Not according to recent issues of Discover magazine.
Genetic testing shows a specific wild source and a
small number of mutations that make it look so
different.

One trend I like in recent agricultural research is finding
wild relatives, finding perenial relatives of them, doing
cross polination and selective breeding to produce
perenial versions of many food crops. Especially with
grain having a perenial version would make huge long
term difference in soil erosion.