Why was it so hard to decode the corn genome?

Question

My teachers growing up told me it was impossible to decode the maize genome. But yet its been done. Why was decoding the genome so significant, and what made it so difficult?

Answer 1

I'm not sure if this is what your teachers were getting at, but there were "jumping genes" or transposons, that caused great difficulty with the corn genome.

Here is a link: https://www2.palomar.edu/users/warmstrong/transpos.htm