corn
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corn,
in botany. The name corn is given to the leading cereal crop of any major region. In England corn means wheat; in Scotland and Ireland, oats. The grain called corn in the United States is Indian corn or maize (Zea mays mays). The part of the United States where most of the corn is grown, including Ohio, Illinois, Indiana, Missouri, Kansas, Iowa, and Nebraska, is known as the Corn Belt.The Corn Plant
The corn plant has a pithy noded stalk supported by prop roots. The staminate (male) flowers form the tassel at the top of the plant. The pistillate (female) flowers are the kernels on the cob, which is enclosed by a leafy husk beyond which extend threadlike styles and stigmas (the silk), which catch the pollen. The corn plant with its ornamental tassel and ears has been a motif of American art since prehistoric times.
The plant is a grassgrass,
any plant of the family Poaceae (formerly Gramineae), an important and widely distributed group of vascular plants, having an extraordinary range of adaptation. Numbering approximately 600 genera and 9,000 species, the grasses form the climax vegetation (see ecology) in
..... Click the link for more information. that was domesticated and cultivated in the Americas long before Europeans reached the New World; genetic and archaeological evidence indicates it was first domesticated c.7000 B.C. Corn has dramatically changed from the ancestral wild grass that was its original form, teosinte (Zea species), a tropical American fodder plant in which the seeds are not united in a cob. It has been so adapted to cultivation that it cannot sustain itself without human cultivation. The Native Americans had many varieties of corn, e.g., sweet corn, popcorn, and corn for corn meal. White, yellow, red, and blue corn were grown as distinct strains.
Development of Hybrids
The easily produced and readily identifiable strains of corn made it a favorite subject for experimental genetics. The development of hybrid corn seed was an early (beginning of the 20th cent.) and revolutionary introduction of the principles of theoretical science into practical agriculture. At first ridiculed, the scientifically developed hybrids came to represent most commercially grown corn types. They resulted in higher yields, increased sugar and lowered starch content, and uniform plants bred to specification for mechanical harvesting. Most recently, genetic engineering has produced corn with added sweetness, disease resistance, and other desired traits.
Uses
As human food, corn is eaten fresh or ground for meal. It is the basic starch plant of Central and Andean South America, where it is still hand ground on metates to be made into tamales, tortillas, and other staple dishes. In the S United States it is familiar as hominy, mush, and grits. Starch, sugar, and oil are also extracted for many products, but the chief use of corn is as animal fodder. It is the primary feed grain of the United States, and in Europe this is almost the only use of corn. Corn is also as a raw material in the manufacture of ethanolethanol
or ethyl alcohol,
CH3CH2OH, a colorless liquid with characteristic odor and taste; commonly called grain alcohol or simply alcohol. Properties
Ethanol is a monohydric primary alcohol. It melts at −117.
..... Click the link for more information. for fuel; some 40% of the U.S. crop is so used.
Bibliography
See P. C. Mangelsdorf, Corn (1974); J. C. Hudson, Making the Corn Belt (1994).
corn
What does it mean when you dream about corn?
Throughout history corn has been celebrated, symbolized, sanctified, ceremonialized, ritualized and even used to describe substandard humor (“corny”). Corn dreams may thus indicate anything from nourishment to the kind of humor the dreamer may be inflicting upon others. Corn may also represent abundance, growth, or fertility.
corn
[kȯrn]cornice
