User:Quarter1001

Maize spread to the rest of the world because of its ability to grow in diverse climates. It was cultivated in Spain just a few decades after Columbus's voyages and then spread to Italy, West Africa and elsewhere.[31] Widespread cultivation most likely began in southern Spain in 1525, after which it quickly spread to the rest of the Spanish Empire including its territories in Italy (and, from there, to other Italian states). Maize had many advantages over wheat and barley; it yielded two and a half times the food energy per unit cultivated area,^[32] could be harvested in successive years from the same plot of land, and grew in wildly varying altitudes and climates, from relatively dry regions with only 250 mm (10 in) of annual rainfall to damp regions with over 5,000 mm (200 in). By the 17th century it was a common peasant food in Southwestern Europe, including Portugal, Spain, southern France, and Italy. By the 18th century, it was the chief food of the southern French and Italian peasantry, especially in the form of polenta in Italy.^[33]

Names

The word maize derives from the Spanish form of the indigenous

Maize is preferred in formal, scientific, and international usage as a common name because it refers specifically to this one grain, unlike corn, which has a complex variety of meanings that vary by context and geographic region.^[37] The US and a handful of other English-speaking countries primarily use corn, though most countries use the term maize.^[38][9][39] The word maize is considered interchangeable in place of corn in the West; during early British and American trade, all grains were considered corn. Maize retained the name corn in the West as the primary grain in these trade relationships.^[35]

The word "corn" outside the US, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand is synonymous with grain referring to any cereal crop with its meaning understood to vary geographically to refer to the local staple,^[40] such as wheat in England and oats in Scotland or Ireland.^[37] In the United States,^[40] Canada,^[41] Australia, and New Zealand, corn primarily means maize. This usage started as a shortening of "Indian corn" in 18th century North America.^[40][42] During European colonization of North America, confusion would occur between British and North American English speakers using the term corn so that North American speakers would need to clarify that they were talking about Indian corn or maize, such as in a conversation between the Massachusetts Bay governor Thomas Hutchinson and the British king George III.^[42] "Indian corn" primarily means maize (the staple grain of indigenous Americans) but can also refer more specifically to multicolored "flint corn" used for decoration.^[43] Other common names include barajovar, makka, silk maize, and zea.^[44]

Betty Fussell writes in an article on the history of the word "corn" in North America that "[t]o say the word "corn" is to plunge into the tragi-farcical mistranslations of language and history".^[28] Similar to the British, the Spanish referred to maize as panizo, a generic term for cereal grains, as did Italians with the term polenta. The British later referred to maize as Turkey wheat, Turkey corn, or Indian corn with Fusell commenting that "they meant not a place but a condition, a savage rather than a civilized grain", especially with Turkish people later naming it kukuruz, or barbaric.^[28]

International groups such as the

In Southern Africa, maize is commonly called mielie (Afrikaans) or mealie (English), words possibly derived from the Portuguese word for maize, milho, but more probably from Dutch meel or English meal, meaning the edible part of a grain or pulse.^[50]

Structure and physiology

The maize plant is often 3 m (10 ft) in height,

The apex of the stem ends in the tassel, an inflorescence of male flowers; these are separate from the female flowers but borne on the same plant (monoecy). When the tassel is mature and conditions are suitably warm and dry, anthers on the tassel dehisce and release pollen. Maize pollen is anemophilous (dispersed by wind), and because of its large settling velocity, most pollen falls within a few meters of the tassel.^[57]

Ears develop above a few of the leaves in the midsection of the plant, between the stem and leaf sheath, elongating by around 3 mm (1⁄8 in) per day, to a length of 18 cm (7 in)^[51] with 60 cm (24 in) being the maximum alleged in the subspecies.^[58] They are female inflorescences, tightly enveloped by several layers of ear leaves commonly called husks.

Elongated

• 
  Female inflorescence, with young silk
• 
  Mature silk
• 
  Stalks, ears and silk
• 
  Male flowers
• 
  Full-grown maize plants
• 
  Mature maize ear on a stalk

Planting density affects multiple aspects of maize. Modern farming techniques in developed countries usually rely on dense planting, which produces one ear per stalk.^[61] Stands of silage maize are yet denser,^{[citation needed]} and achieve a lower percentage of ears and more plant matter.^{[citation needed]}

Maize is a

Because of its shallow roots, maize is susceptible to droughts, intolerant of nutrient-deficient soils, and prone to be uprooted by severe winds.[67]

• 
  Maize kernels
• 
  Ear of maize with irregular rows of kernels

While yellow maizes derive their color from

The ear leaf is the leaf most closely associated with a particular developing ear. This leaf and above contribute 70%[75] to 75% to 90%^[76] of grain fill. Therefore fungicide application is most important in that region in most disease environments.^[75][76]

• 
  MHNT
• 
  cv. "strawberry"—

  MHNT
• 
  cv. "Oaxacan Green"

  MHNT
• 
  Variegated maize ears
• 
  Multicolored corn kernels (CSIRO)

Abnormal flowers

Maize flowers may sometimes exhibit mutations that lead to the formation of female flowers in the tassel. These mutations, ts4 and Ts6, prohibit the development of the stamen while simultaneously promoting pistil development.^[77] This may cause inflorescences containing both male and female flowers, or hermaphrodite flowers.^[78]

Genomics and genetics

Maize is an annual grass in the family

• Flour corn: Z. m. var. amylacea
• Popcorn: Z. m. var. everta
• Dent corn : Z. m. var. indentata
• Flint corn: Z. m. var. indurata
• Sweet corn: Z. m. var. saccharata and Z. m. var. rugosa
• Waxy corn: Z. m. var. ceratina
• Amylomaize: Z. mays^{[verification needed]}
• Pod corn: Z. m. var. tunicata Larrañaga ex A. St. Hil.
• Striped maize: Z. m. var. japonica

This system has been replaced (though not entirely displaced) over the last 60 years by multivariable classifications based on ever more data.

In Z. mays and various other angiosperms the MADS-box motif is involved in floral development. Early study in several angiosperm models including Z. mays was the beginning of research into the molecular evolution of floral structure in general, as well as their role in nonflowering plants.^[88]

Varieties differ in their

Svitashev et al., 2016 demonstrates the integration of genome editing using (CRISPR–Cas9) into the breeding process for this crop.^[91]

Evolution

As with many plants and animals, Z. mays has a positive correlation between

Recombination is a significant source of diversity in Z. mays. (Note that this finding supersedes previous studies which showed no such correlation.)^[92]

This recombination/diversity effect is seen throughout plants but is also found to not occur – or not as strongly – in regions of high gene density. This is likely the reason that domesticated Z. mays has not seen as much of an increase in diversity within areas of higher density as in regions of lower density, although there is more evidence in other plants.^[92]

Some lines of maize have undergone ancient

Ploidy does not appear to influence EPS or magnitude of selection effect in maize.[92]

Breeding

Maize reproduces sexually each year. This randomly selects half the genes from a given plant to propagate to the next generation, meaning that desirable traits found in the crop (like high yield or good nutrition) can be lost in subsequent generations unless certain techniques are used.^{[citation needed]}

Maize breeding in prehistory resulted in large plants producing large ears. Modern breeding began with individuals who selected highly productive varieties in their fields and then sold seed to other farmers. James L. Reid was one of the earliest and most successful developing Reid's Yellow Dent in the 1860s. These early efforts were based on

Since the 1940s the best strains of maize have been first-generation hybrids made from inbred strains that have been optimized for specific traits, such as yield, nutrition, drought, pest and disease tolerance. Both conventional cross-breeding and genetic engineering have succeeded in increasing output and reducing the need for cropland, pesticides, water and fertilizer.[94] There is conflicting evidence to support the hypothesis that maize yield potential has increased over the past few decades. This suggests that changes in yield potential are associated with leaf angle, lodging resistance, tolerance of high plant density, disease/pest tolerance, and other agronomic traits rather than increase of yield potential per individual plant.^[95]

Certain varieties of maize have been bred to produce many ears which are the source of the "baby corn" used as a vegetable in Asian cuisine.^[96]

One strain called olotón has evolved a symbiotic relationship with nitrogen-fixing microbes, which provides the plant with 29%–82% of its nitrogen.^[97]

CIMMYT operates a conventional breeding program to provide optimized strains. The program began in the 1980s. Hybrid seeds are distributed in Africa by the Drought Tolerant Maize for Africa project.^[94]

Genetic engineering

In September 2000, up to $50 million worth of food products were recalled due to the presence of Starlink genetically modified corn, which had been approved only for animal consumption and had not been approved for human consumption, and was subsequently withdrawn from the market.^[104]

For pest and disease resistance

Tropical

Several theories had been proposed about the specific origin of maize in Mesoamerica:[108]^[109]

1. It is a direct domestication of a
   genetic material obtained from Z. m. ssp. mexicana through introgression.^[16]
2. It has been derived from
   hybridization between a small domesticated maize (a slightly changed form of a wild maize) and a teosinte of section Luxuriantes, either Z. luxurians or Z. diploperennis
   .
3. It has undergone two or more domestications either of a wild maize or of a teosinte. (The term "teosinte" describes all species and subspecies in the genus Zea, excluding Z. m. ssp. mays.)
4. It has evolved from a hybridization of Z. diploperennis by Tripsacum dactyloides.

In the late 1930s,

1. how the immense diversity of the species of sect. Zea originated,
2. how the tiny archaeological specimens of 3500–2700 BC could have been selected from a teosinte, and
3. how domestication could have proceeded without leaving remains of teosinte or maize with teosintoid traits earlier than the earliest known until recently, dating from ca. 1100 BC.

The

Doebley was part of the team that first published, in 2002, that maize had been domesticated only once, about 9,000 years ago, and then spread throughout the Americas.[16]^[115]

A primitive corn was being grown in southern Mexico, Central America, and northern South America 7,000 years ago. Archaeological remains of early maize ears, found at

Maize pollen dated to 7,300 B.P. from San Andres, Tabasco, on the Caribbean coast has also been recovered.^[113]

As maize was introduced to new cultures, new uses were developed and new varieties selected to better serve in those preparations. Maize was the staple food, or a major staple – along with

It is unknown what precipitated its domestication, because the edible portion of the wild variety is too small, and hard to obtain, to be eaten directly, as each kernel is enclosed in a very hard bivalve shell.^[citation needed]

In 1939, George Beadle demonstrated that the kernels of teosinte are readily "popped" for human consumption, like modern popcorn.^[116] Some have argued it would have taken too many generations of selective breeding to produce large, compressed ears for efficient cultivation. However, studies of the hybrids readily made by intercrossing teosinte and modern maize suggest this objection is not well founded.^{[citation needed]}

Spreading to the north

Around 4,500 years ago, maize began to spread to the north. Maize was first cultivated in what is now the United States at several sites in New Mexico and Arizona about 4,100 years ago.^[117]

During the first millennium AD, maize cultivation spread more widely in the areas north. In particular, the large-scale adoption of maize agriculture and consumption in eastern North America took place about A.D. 900. Native Americans cleared large forest and grassland areas for the new crop.^[118]

In 2005, research by the USDA Forest Service suggested that the rise in maize cultivation 500 to 1,000 years ago in what is now the southeastern United States corresponded with a decline of freshwater mussels, which are very sensitive to environmental changes.^[119]

Cultivation

Planting

Because it is cold-intolerant, in the

Maize was planted by the

In most regions today, maize grown in residential gardens is still often planted manually with a hoe, whereas maize grown commercially is no longer planted manually but rather is planted with a planter. In North America, fields are often planted in a two-crop rotation with a nitrogen-fixing crop, often alfalfa in cooler climates and soybeans in regions with longer summers. Sometimes a third crop, winter wheat, is added to the rotation.^{[citation needed]}

Many of the maize varieties grown in the United States and Canada are hybrids. Often the varieties have been

Harvesting

Maize harvested as a grain crop can be kept in the field a relatively long time, even months, after the crop is ready to harvest; it is also harvested and stored in the husk leaves if kept dry.^[124] Before the 20th century, all maize harvesting was by manual labour, by grazing, or by some combination of those. Whether the ears were hand-picked and the stover was grazed, or the whole plant was cut, gathered, and shocked, people and livestock did all the work. Between the 1890s and the 1970s, the technology of maize harvesting expanded greatly. Today, all such technologies, from entirely manual harvesting to entirely mechanized, are still in use to some degree, as appropriate to each farm's needs, although the thoroughly mechanized versions predominate, as they offer the lowest unit costs when scaled to large farm operations.

Before World War II, most maize in North America was harvested by hand. This involved a large number of workers and associated social events (husking or shucking bees). From the 1890s onward, some machinery became available to partially mechanize the processes, such as one- and two-row mechanical pickers (picking the ear, leaving the stover) and corn binders, which are reaper-binders designed specifically for maize. The latter produce sheaves that can be shocked. By hand or mechanical picker, the entire ear is harvested, which then requires a separate operation of a maize sheller to remove the kernels from the ear. Whole ears of maize were often stored in corn cribs, and these whole ears are a sufficient form for some livestock feeding use. Today corn cribs with whole ears, and corn binders, are less common because most modern farms harvest the grain from the field with a combine and store it in bins. The combine with a corn head (with points and snap rolls instead of a reel) does not cut the stalk; it simply pulls the stalk down. The stalk continues downward and is crumpled into a mangled pile on the ground, where it usually is left to become organic matter for the soil. The ear of maize is too large to pass between slots in a plate as the snap rolls pull the stalk away, leaving only the ear and husk to enter the machinery. The combine separates the husk and the cob, keeping only the kernels.^[125]

The entire maize plant is also harvested as a silage crop.^[126]

For storing grain in bins, the moisture of the grain must be sufficiently low to avoid spoiling. If the moisture content of the harvested grain is too high, grain dryers are used to reduce the moisture content by blowing heated air through the grain. This can require large amounts of energy in the form of combustible gases (propane or natural gas) and electricity to power the blowers.^[127]

Production

Maize is widely cultivated throughout the world, and a greater weight of maize is produced each year than any other grain.^[10] In 2020, total world production was 1.16 billion tonnes, led by the United States with 31.0% of the total (table). China produced 22.4% of the global total.^[129]

United States

In 2016, maize production was forecast to be over 380 million metric tons (15 billion

The estimated corn usage for crop year September 1, 2020 to August 31, 2021, was 38.7 percent was used for feed, 34 percent for ethanol, 17.5 percent for export, and 9.8 percent for food.[133]

Trade

Corn futures are traded on several exchanges, the Chicago Board of Trade (CBOT) and JSE Derivatives (JDERIV). The Chicago Board Of Trade sells corn futures with a contact size of 5000 bushels which is quoted in cents/bushel and the JDERIV has a contact size of 100 Tonnes, quoted in Rand/Ton.^[134][135] The detailed contract specifications are listed below:

Pests

Insects

• African armyworm (Spodoptera exempta)
• African sugarcane borer (Eldana saccharina)
• Asian corn borer
  (Ostrinia furnacalis)
• Common armyworm (
  Pseudaletia unipuncta
  )
• Common earwig
  (Forficula auricularia)
• Corn delphacid
  (Peregrinus maidis)
• Corn leaf aphid
  (Rhopalosiphum maidis)
• Corn rootworms (
  D. undecimpunctata howardi
  )
• Corn silkfly (Euxesta stigmatias)
• Dusky sap beetle (Carpophilus lugubris)
• European corn borer (Ostrinia nubilalis) (ECB)
• Fall armyworm (Spodoptera frugiperda) Some sweet corn varieties have developed partial resistance to fall army worms by producing a unique 33-kD proteinase that significantly retards fall army worm growth.^[136][137]
• Corn earworm/Cotton bollworm (Helicoverpa zea)
• Lesser cornstalk borer
  (Elasmopalpus lignosellus)
• Maize weevil (Sitophilus zeamais)
• Northern armyworm, Oriental armyworm or Rice ear-cutting caterpillar (Mythimna separata)
• Southwestern corn borer (Diatraea grandiosella)
• Stalk borer
  (Papaipema nebris)

The susceptibility of maize to the European corn borer and corn rootworms, and the resulting large crop losses which are estimated at a billion dollars worldwide for each pest,

• Rust
• Corn smut or common smut (Ustilago maydis): a fungal disease, known in Mexico as huitlacoche, which is prized by some as a gourmet delicacy in itself
• Northern corn leaf blight (Purdue Extension site) (Pioneer site) Archived June 24, 2017, at the Wayback Machine
• Southern corn leaf blight
• Maize downy mildew (Peronosclerospora spp.)
• Maize dwarf mosaic virus
• Maize streak virus
• Stewart's wilt (Pantoea stewartii)
• Goss's wilt (
  Clavibacter michiganensis subsp. nebraskensis)^[141]
• Grey leaf spot^[142]
• Mal de Río Cuarto virus (MRCV)
• Stalk rot
• Ear rot
• Aspergillus flavus^[100]
• A. parasiticus^[100]

Storage

Drying is vital to prevent or at least reduce mycotoxin contamination. Aspergillus and Fusarium spp. are the most common mycotoxin sources, but there are others. Altogether maize contaminants are so common, and this crop is so economically important, that maize mycotoxins are among the most important in agriculture in general.^[100]

Uses

Culinary

Maize and

Coarse maize meal is made into a thick

Maize can also be harvested and consumed in the unripe state, when the kernels are fully grown but still soft. Unripe maize must usually be cooked to become palatable; this may be done by simply boiling or roasting the whole ears and eating the kernels right off the cob. Sweet corn, a genetic variety that is high in sugars and low in starch, is usually consumed in the unripe state. Such corn on the cob is a common dish in the United States, Canada, United Kingdom, Cyprus, some parts of South America, and the Balkans, but virtually unheard of in some European countries.^{[citation needed]} Corn on the cob was hawked on the streets of early 19th-century New York City by poor, barefoot "Hot Corn Girls", who were thus the precursors of hot dog carts, churro wagons, and fruit stands seen on the streets of big cities today.^[145]

Within the United States, the usage of maize for human consumption constitutes only around 1/40th of the amount grown in the country. In the United States and Canada, maize is mostly grown to feed livestock, as forage, silage (made by fermentation of chopped green cornstalks), or grain. Maize meal is also a significant ingredient of some commercial animal food products.^{[citation needed]}

Nutritional value

Raw, yellow, sweet maize kernels are composed of 76% water, 19%

Maize has suboptimal amounts of the essential amino acids tryptophan and lysine, which accounts for its lower status as a protein source.^[148] However, the proteins of beans and legumes complement those of maize.^[148]

Feed and fodder for livestock

Maize is a major source of both grain feed and fodder for livestock. It is fed to the livestock in various ways. When it is used as a grain crop, the dried kernels are used as feed. They are often kept on the cob for storage in a corn crib, or they may be shelled off for storage in a grain bin. The farm that consumes the feed may produce it, purchase it on the market, or some of both. When the grain is used for feed, the rest of the plant (the corn stover) can be used later as fodder, bedding (litter), or soil amendment. When the whole maize plant (grain plus stalks and leaves) is used for fodder, it is usually chopped all at once and ensilaged, as digestibility and palatability are higher in the ensilaged form than in the dried form. Maize silage is one of the most valuable forages for ruminants.^[149] Before the advent of widespread ensilaging, it was traditional to gather the corn into shocks after harvesting, where it dried further. With or without a subsequent move to the cover of a barn, it was then stored for weeks to several months until fed to the livestock. Today ensilaging can occur not only in siloes but also in silage wrappers. However, in the tropics, maize can be harvested year-round and fed as green forage to the animals.^[150]

Chemicals

Starch from maize can also be made into

Chrysanthemin is found in purple corn and is used as a food coloring.^{[citation needed]}

Bio-fuel

"Feed maize" is being used increasingly for heating;^[152] specialized corn stoves (similar to wood stoves) are available and use either feed maize or wood pellets to generate heat. Maize cobs are also used as a biomass fuel source. Maize is relatively cheap and home-heating furnaces have been developed which use maize kernels as a fuel. They feature a large hopper that feeds the uniformly sized maize kernels (or wood pellets or cherry pits) into the fire.^{[citation needed]}

Maize is increasingly used as a feedstock for the production of ethanol fuel.^[153] When considering where to construct an ethanol plant, one of the site selection criteria is to ensure there is locally available feedstock.^[154] Ethanol is mixed with gasoline to decrease the amount of pollutants emitted when used to fuel motor vehicles. High fuel prices in mid-2007 led to higher demand for ethanol, which in turn led to higher prices paid to farmers for maize. This led to the 2007 harvest being one of the most profitable maize crops in modern history for farmers. Because of the relationship between fuel and maize, prices paid for the crop now tend to track the price of oil. ^{[citation needed]}

The price of food is affected to a certain degree by the use of maize for biofuel production. The cost of transportation, production, and marketing are a large portion (80%) of the price of food in the United States. Higher energy costs affect these costs, especially transportation. The increase in food prices the consumer has been seeing is mainly due to the higher energy cost. The effect of biofuel production on other food crop prices is indirect. Use of maize for biofuel production increases the demand, and therefore price of maize. This, in turn, results in farm acreage being diverted from other food crops to maize production. This reduces the supply of the other food crops and increases their prices.^[155][156]

Maize is widely used in Germany as a feedstock for

Maize is bought and sold by investors and price speculators as a tradable commodity using corn futures contracts. These "futures" are traded on the Chicago Board of Trade (CBOT) under ticker symbol C. They are delivered every year in March, May, July, September, and December.^[159]

Ornamental and other uses

Some forms of the plant are occasionally grown for ornamental use in the garden. For this purpose, variegated and colored leaf forms as well as those with colorful ears are used.^{[citation needed]}

Corncobs can be hollowed out and treated to make inexpensive

An unusual use for maize is to create a "

Maize kernels can be used in place of sand in a sandboxlike enclosure for children's play.^[161]

Stigmas from female maize flowers, popularly called

Maize is used as a fish bait, called "dough balls". It is particularly popular in Europe for coarse fishing.^{[citation needed]}

Additionally, feed corn is sometimes used by hunters to bait animals such as deer or wild hogs.^{[citation needed]}

United States usage breakdown

The breakdown of usage of the 12.1-billion-bushel (307-million-tonne) 2008 US maize crop was as follows, according to the World Agricultural Supply and Demand Estimates Report by the USDA.^[162]

In the US since 2009/2010, maize feedstock use for ethanol production has somewhat exceeded direct use for livestock feed; maize use for fuel ethanol was 5,130 million bushels (130 million tonnes) in the 2013/2014 marketing year.^[163]

A fraction of the maize feedstock dry matter used for ethanol production is usefully recovered as DDGS (dried distillers grains with solubles). In the 2010/2011 marketing year, about 29.1 million tonnes of DDGS were fed to US livestock and poultry.^[164] Because starch utilization in fermentation for ethanol production leaves other grain constituents more concentrated in the residue, the feed value per kg of DDGS, with regard to ruminant-metabolizable energy and protein, exceeds that of the grain. Feed value for monogastric animals, such as swine and poultry, is somewhat lower than for ruminants.^[164]

Comparison to other staple foods

The following table shows the nutrient content of maize and major staple foods in a raw harvested form on a dry weight basis to account for their different water contents. Raw forms are not usually eaten and cannot be digested well. They are either sprouted, or prepared and cooked for human consumption. In sprouted or cooked form, the nutritional and anti-nutritional contents of each of these staples differ from that of raw form of these staples reported in the table below.

Hazards

Pellagra

When maize was first introduced into farming systems other than those used by traditional native-American peoples, it was generally welcomed with enthusiasm for its productivity. However, a widespread problem of malnutrition soon arose wherever maize was introduced as a staple food. This was a mystery, since these types of malnutrition were not normally seen among the indigenous Americans, for whom maize was the principal staple food.^[170]

It was eventually discovered that the indigenous Americans had learned to soak maize in

Maize was introduced into the diet of non-indigenous Americans without the necessary cultural knowledge historically acquired in the Americas. In the late 19th century, pellagra reached epidemic proportions in parts of the southern US, as medical researchers debated two theories for its origin: the deficiency theory (which was eventually shown to be true) said that pellagra was due to a deficiency of some nutrient, and the germ theory said that pellagra was caused by a germ transmitted by stable flies. Another theory promoted by the eugenicist Charles Davenport held that people only contracted pellagra if they were susceptible to it due to certain "constitutional, inheritable" traits of the affected individual.^[172]

Once alkali processing and dietary variety were understood and applied, pellagra disappeared in the developed world. The development of high lysine maize and the promotion of a more balanced diet have also contributed to its demise. Pellagra still exists today in food-poor areas and refugee camps where people survive on donated maize.^[173]

Allergy

Maize contains

Gold maize. Moche culture 300 A.D., Larco Museum, Lima, Peru

Water tower in Rochester, Minnesota being painted as an ear of maize

Maize has been an essential crop in the Andes since the pre-Columbian era. The Moche culture from Northern Peru made ceramics from earth, water, and fire. This pottery was a sacred substance, formed in significant shapes and used to represent important themes. Maize was represented anthropomorphically as well as naturally.^[176]

In the United States, maize ears along with tobacco leaves are carved into the capitals of columns in the United States Capitol building. Maize itself is sometimes used for temporary architectural detailing when the intent is to celebrate the fall season, local agricultural productivity and culture. Bundles of dried maize stalks are often displayed along with pumpkins, gourds and straw in autumnal displays outside homes and businesses. A well-known example of architectural use is the Corn Palace in Mitchell, South Dakota, which uses cobs and ears of colored maize to implement a mural design that is recycled annually. Another well-known example is the Field of Corn sculpture in Dublin, Ohio, where hundreds of concrete ears of corn stand in a grassy field.^[177]

A maize stalk with two ripe ears is depicted on the reverse of the Croatian 1 lipa coin, minted since 1993.^[178]

Shucked, a 2022 musical that is currently running on Broadway, was described by Vulture as a "show about corn". Much of the show contains puns relating to corn^[179][180] and the plot revolves around a blighted corn crop.^[181]

See also

References