FIGURE 5.

Timeline model for the evolution of weedy rice in Northern Italy. The data generated by this study suggest that contaminated seed stocks imported from Asia introduced rufipogon alleles for domestication traits (most prominently, for pericarp pigmentation). This step represents an exoferality event. With the establishment of rice breeding programs in Italy around 1,800 until today, several de‐domestication events of cultigens produced novel weedy traits by endoferality. These spread to a certain extent, partially in the heterozygous state (e.g., the sd1 locus). With the switch from transplanting to direct sowing in the 1960s, the selective pressure for domestication alleles was drastically reduced leading to an increase in infestation rates