Oryza rufipogon is an ordinary-looking wild grass found today in parts of China, India and Southeast Asia. More than 8,000 years ago, people living in the Lower Yangtze Valley began cultivating it.
Like any other wild grass, O. rufipogon releases its seeds to the ground when ready to propagate new baby plants. Perhaps inadvertently at first, people selected rare individual plants that failed to release their seeds, kept an upright posture and had other traits that made it easier to harvest their seeds for food.
