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Drying ears

Most of the area sown to maize (58 percent) is in developing countries, and of this approximately 50 million hectares are in the tropics, mainly at low elevations. However, about two-thirds of the world's maize is produced in developed countries, whose climates are almost entirely temperate. Production figures show large differences in yield between developed countries in temperate regions and developing countries in the tropics. The physiological understanding of the limitations to grain yield provide a basis for crop improvement, but there are few examples of recurrent selection based on physiological characters that determine yield. Maize has an important part to play in providing food to meet the current and future needs of the world. As a species it contains enormous genetic variation. The potential yield of maize is larger than that of either wheat or rice and, as we look toward the year 2000, we can expect maize to assume a proportionally larger and more important role in world food production.

K. S. Fischer and A. F. E. Palmer, 1984, "Tropical Maize," IN The Physiology of Tropical Field Crops

Special Report No. 48, How a Corn Plant Develops, from the Iowa State University Cooperative Extension Service, a widely utilized illustrated guide to staging maize plant growth. For a printed copy of the report, contact Iowa State University's Extension Publications Distribution office.

Dr. Stanley G. Jensen, of the USDA-ARS and Univ. of Nebraska's Plant Pathology Department, provides his analysis of the world wide implications of the emergence of the High Plains Virus in the maize and wheat crops. The document includes high-quality photographs of symptoms and an extensive bibliography

Kansas State University's Robert Bowden summarizes what is currently known about the High Plains Virus (HPV), an apparently new virus affecting corn and wheat

The Mutants of Maize. New version of the essential illustrated catalog of the major mutants of maize, expected from Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Press this year. See images of the mutants from the Maize DB server

Visit the page of the Cooperative Federal-State Maize Breeding Project at Iowa State University. Learn about the researchers and their research projects in various fields, including: population improvement, inbred releases, quantitative genetics, molecular markers, QTL mapping, exotic germplasm and the molecular biology and biochemistry of grain quality of maize. Some papers and data can be downloaded in PDF format, and some presentations can be reviewed on-line. As examples, see the paper by Lamkey and Edwards (1998) on The Quantitative Genetics of Heterosis, and Labate's (1997) presentation on Population Genetic Analysis of Molecular Marker Data

Are you seeking probes, SSR primers, clone libraries? Consult the Tools Section of the MaizeDB server

Maize Chromosome Maps, including linkage information and graphical representations, from the Univ. of Missouri-Columbia, CIMMYT, Cornell and Brookhaven National Laboratory Projects. Yet another invaluable feature of the MaizeDB server!

For a multimedia guide to understanding and troubleshooting early maize crop development, obtain a copy of the CD-ROM Corn Growth, Development and Diagnostics - Germination to Knee High, produced by Dr. Lee Schweitzer of Purdue University's Agronomy Department. The disc includes information to help diagnose pest and chemical injuries, and features tutorial and testing modes

A Proposed Standard System of Nomenclature for Maize Grain Filling Events and Concepts. As the title says, this is an effort to eliminate ambiguity and miscommunication among plant scientists

Corn Refiners Association, Inc. is the national trade group representing the corn wet milling industry in the United States. Their site includes useful statistics, information about and links to member industries and publication and conference information.

ExSeed Genetics LLC Forecaster Newsletter, from the global supplier of genetic performance traits in grains to the end use marketplace.

Genetic Engineering of Maize, a RAFI Communique, dated October 1991, providing a succinct, critical explanation of the goals of maize transformation, potential uses (herbicide tolerance, insect resistance, male sterility, oil and protein quality improvement), the financial stakes, and a list of companies involved in commercial development of transformed maize

Online images from Cheng, Pareddy and Bommineni's Maize Structure Atlas.

Collection of papers describing various aspects of maize breeding, from McGill University.