Oryza sativa wet-rice cultivation as early as 2200 BC has been discovered at both Ban Chiang and Ban Prasat in Thailand. By the 18th century, encroaching European expansionism in the area increased rice production in much of Southeast Asia, and Thailand, then known as Siam. British Burma became the world's largest exporter of rice, from the turn of the 20th century to the 1970s, when neighbouring Thailand exceeded Burma. In recent years, Vietnam has been a strong exporter, as well, occasionally eclipsing Thailand. While China, India, and Indonesia remain the top rice producers, they are also some of the top rice consumers.
Plant genome assembly products were used to clone remaining gaps, and YACs allowed the characterization of telomere sequences. The resulting sequenced regions were 115.4 Mb of the 125 Mb predicted size of the genome and a total of 25,498 of protein-coding genes. To sequence and assemble the genome of Oryza Sativa (japonica), the same strategy was used. For Oryza Sativa a total of 3,401 mapped clones in a minimum tiling path were selected from the physical map and assembled. One of the most important crops in the world, maize (Zea mays), is the last plant genome project primarily based on Sanger BAC-by-BAC strategy.