Youtube hearted comments of Mighty One (@mightyone3737).
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Curious looking at your list of 'traits for domesticated grain', but it does make me think of how much corn in particular was changed by human selective breeding, taken from an inedible kernel to a highly starchy grain, but it has so many advantages over other competing grains. it's going to be scary when the already warm areas of the world get even hotter, and cannot grow corn anymore in those pervious key areas, and must switch to other grains like sorghum, which as I understand do not yield anywhere near as heavily. The list also makes me think about amaranth, it certainly lacks several of those traits, but the domesticated versions are quite different from the wild ones, including in seed size and quality, as well as plant size and consistency.
A thought did occur to me as I watched this, if someone wanted to breed maize back then, in an environment where maize is native, they'd have had to weed it out locally, wouldn't they? This might explain why you don't really find wild maize anywhere, if it was exterminated to prevent contamination of their superior mutant maize? That sounds like an astounding undertaking, but I can't see how else it would disappear without the domesticated also dying out.
I was always interested in how many different 'grains' were grown in the New World, with many of them being healthier to eat, but it's also interesting that maize can be prepared in such a way that it is healthier to eat. The New World may not have invented the wheel, but it did invent a hell of a lot we still depend on.
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