Editing Selective breeding (section)

== Plant breeding ==
{{Main|Plant breeding}}
[[File:Carrots of many colors.jpg|thumb|Researchers at the [[USDA]] have selectively bred carrots with a variety of colors.]]
The process of plant breeding has been used for thousands of years, and began with the domestication of [[Wild type|wild]] plants into uniform and predictable agricultural [[cultigen]]s.  These [[Crop yield|high-yielding]] varieties have been particularly important in agriculture. As crops improved, humans were able to move from [[hunter-gatherer]] style living to a mix of hunter-gatherer and agriculture practices.<ref>{{Cite web |title=The Development of Agriculture |url=https://education.nationalgeographic.org/resource/development-agriculture |access-date=2024-02-14 |website=education.nationalgeographic.org |language=en}}</ref> Although these higher yielding plants were derived from an extremely primitive version of plant breeding, this form of agriculture was an investment that the people who grew them were planting then could have a more varied diet. This meant that they did not completely stop their hunting and gathering immediately but instead over time transitioned and ultimately favored agriculture.<ref name=":3" /> Originally this was due to humans not wanting to risk using all their time and resources for their crops just to fail. Which was promptly called play farming due to the idea of "farmers" experimenting with agriculture.<ref name=":3">{{Cite web |last=Deresiewicz |first=William |date=2021-10-18 |title=Human History Gets a Rewrite |url=https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2021/11/graeber-wengrow-dawn-of-everything-history-humanity/620177/ |access-date=2024-02-14 |website=The Atlantic |language=en}}</ref> In addition, the ability for humans to stay within one place for food and create permanent settlements made the process move along faster.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Hunter-Gatherer Culture |url=https://education.nationalgeographic.org/resource/hunter-gatherer-culture |access-date=2024-02-14 |website=education.nationalgeographic.org |language=en}}</ref> During this transitional period, crops began to acclimate and evolve with humans encouraging humans to invest further into crops. Over time this reliance on plant breeding has created problems, as highlighted by the book [[The Botany of Desire|Botany of Desire]] where [[Michael Pollan]] shows the connection between basic human desires through four different plants: [[Apple|apples]] for sweetness, [[Tulip|tulips]] for beauty, [[cannabis]] for intoxication, and [[Potato|potatoes]] for control. In a form of [[reciprocal evolution]] humans have influenced these plants as much as the plants have influenced the people that consume them, is known as [[coevolution]].<ref>{{Cite book |last=Pollan |first=Michael |title=The botany of desire: a plant's-eye view of the world |date=2002 |publisher=Random House |isbn=978-0-375-76039-6 |edition=Paperback |series=Random House trade paperbacks |location=New York, NY}}</ref>

Selective plant breeding is also used in research to produce [[transgenic]] animals that breed "true" (i.e., are [[homozygous]]) for artificially inserted or [[gene knockout|deleted]] genes.<ref name="J&K 2004">{{cite book|last1=Jain|first1=H. K.|last2=Kharkwal|first2=M. C.|title=Plant breeding – Mendelian to molecular approaches.|date=2004|publisher=Kluwer Academic Publishers|location=Boston, London, Dordecht|isbn=978-1-4020-1981-4}}</ref>