Maize is the most domesticated and evolutioned plant member from the plantae kingdom but its origin has been a mystery since maize has been found highly evolved, with no intermediate forms known. In spite of extensive search of maize wild forms, none have been found.

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    Finally at the beginning of 80´s, Iltis proposes a theory in which he establishes that teocinte was converted to maize in a single macroevolutive step. Recent studies of genetic recombination performed by Doebley seem to discard the Iltis´ hypothesis and strength Mangledorff´s theory. In the present research we wish to expose the experiments performed by us in the last 5 years, which seem to support Iltis´ theory of a single evolution step from teocinte to maize.

    Next we have added some navigation icons, each one of them will take you to a link where we expose the main mutations detected during this resarch which show the evolution of teosinte to maize. We suggest as a first visit, the huichol legend for basic observations and then Introduction where it´s explained the research methodology and the motive to use heavy metals to induce gentical changes.