Research on history of Japanese waxy corn

Maize have two types of starch: non-waxy and waxy. Waxy type appears if the
Wx genes that control the starch are recessive homozygote. Waxy maize
resulted from the mutation of flint type and this mutation happens
relatively easily. Through this mutation, maize become glutinous.

Waxy maize are grown only in southeast and east Asia, whereas maize
originated in Meso-America and is now grown in the world. This is because
people there like glutinous food. They screened waxy type and established
waxy maize varieties.

There are some reports on waxy corn in 19th century and 20th century in
Japan, but origin or history of waxy maize has not been revealed. As
mentioned above, the mutation occurs easily, so we can propose two
probability on occurrence of waxy maize in Japan. One is that waxy maize
originated in some place in southeast or east Asia and came to Japan.
Another is that waxy types in Japan were originated in Japan.

The objective of this research is to reveal which hypothesis can be
supported by comparing waxy maizes in Japan with those in other areas and
non-waxy maizes in Japan and other areas, using morphological character,
traits of growth, and genetic distances.

I will tell you what has been revealed until now and research plan for this
year.