In their effort to collect, grow, and isolate more productive mutant forms of teosinte, the first corn breeders of 8000 years ago included two kinds of four-rowed teosinte. One had two ranks of paired spikelets due to the pd mutation. The other had four ranks of single spikelets due to the mr mutation. They hybridized in their isolated gene pool. The double mutant from recombination was the first eight-rowed corn (Fig. 3). 

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