14 September: Maize

In the French Revolutionary Calendar, today was the day of maize.

The word "corn" in many parts of the English speaking world is used to refer to whatever the local staple cereal crop is, and maize, in North America, Australia, and New Zealand, is referred to as corn. Maize is the "corn on the cob" or sweetcorn producing crop, so that's what the following facts relate to.

1. The word maize comes from an old word for “sacred mother,” or “giver of life” in the Taino language. No surprise perhaps that the Mayan creation story involves the corn god fashioning humans out of corn paste. The Maya refer to themselves as “The People of the Corn”.
2. Maize corn doesn't exist in the wild. It is entirely a human creation, probably developed by people in Central America at least 7,000 years ago, from a wild grass called teosinte.
3. 40% of the world's maize is produced in the USA and a third of that is grown in Iowa and Illinois. Maize has been an important crop in North America since the very early days when the early settlers were introduced to it by Native Americans, who taught them how to cultivate it and use it for food. In those days it was often used as a form of currency. It was eaten at the first thanksgiving feast.
4. Its importance is reflected in the fact that the capitals of columns in the United States Capitol building have corn cobs carved on them. They are often included in art to represent fall (autumn), local agricultural productivity and culture.
5. When you think of maize, the colour that comes to mind is Yellow - but it also comes in Red, White, Green, Black and Purple. The six major types of corn are dent corn, flint corn, pod corn, Popcorn, flour corn, and sweet corn. The big agricultural machine in the US relies heavily on just twelve varieties today, while 100 years ago, 307 different types were grown. Many thousands of different types exist as samples and in seed banks, though.
6. Only a small portion of the maize produced in the US is for human food (sweetcorn, corn flakes, popcorn etc as well as the oil being used in peanut butter, sweeteners for soft drinks, potato chips, soups, Marshmallows, Ice cream, baby food, cooking oil, margarine, mayonnaise, salad dressing, and chewing gum to name a few). Most of it us used to produce animal feed and fuel. It can be used to produce ethanol which is a component of gasoline. Fireworks, rust preventatives, glue, paint, dyes, laundry detergent, soap, Aspirin, antibiotics, paint, shoe polish, ink, cosmetics and photographic film all use something from the maize plant, be it oil, starch or fibre. Purple corn contains a chemical called Chrysanthemin which can be used as a food colouring.
7. Every corn cob has an even number of rows.
8. Maize is grown on every continent except Antarctica. Maize doesn't like the cold, so it is planted in the spring. It has shallow roots and needs lots of moisture in the soil. Nevertheless it can grow to 3m (10 ft) in height, or even higher for some varieties. If it is "knee-high by the Fourth of July", it means the harvest will be good.
9. 100g of maize has 86 calories and is a good source of B vitamins, dietary fibre, magnesium and phosphorus. A bushel of corn contains about 72,800 kernels and weighs 56 pounds.
10. The maize plant has more genes than a human being. It has 32,000 on 10 chromosomes while we have 20,000 on 23 chromosomes.

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