A tall annual cereal grass bearing large starchy grains on cobs, one of the world's most important staple crops.
Maize (Zea mays, family Poaceae) is a robust, upright, usually unbranched annual grass, up to 6 metres tall but more often about 2 metres, with varieties from about 1 metre to 3 metres or more. It is one of the most widely grown crops in the world, giving popcorn, sweetcorn and grain for flour. It was first domesticated in the Americas, probably in South America or Mexico, around 4,000 BC, and it is not known wild. It also has many other uses: it is used in herbal medicine, especially as a diuretic, and for thatch, paper and cellulose, oil and adhesives.
Maize needs a warm to hot growing season, whose length depends on the variety, from about 70 days for some very early types to 200 days for very late ones; sweetcorn is picked while the grain is still maturing, so it needs a shorter season than maize grown for dry grain. It grows from the temperate zone to the lowland tropics, up to 2,000 metres in the tropics, best with 800 to 1,200 mm of rain a year and at 20 to 24°C; heavy rain and temperatures above 35°C reduce the crop. It needs sun and a rich, well-drained, humus-rich loam with ample moisture in the growing season, and yields fall on acid soils. Like the amaranths, it uses the efficient C4 pathway of photosynthesis. Seed is sown where it is to grow and germinates in four to six days.
Source: Useful Tropical Plants database (Fern, K.).
Corn silk is used traditionally as a diuretic and for urinary and kidney complaints.
Grains are eaten boiled, roasted, ground into flour or meal (such as for tuwo/pap), and processed into a wide range of foods and drinks.
A widely cultivated annual crop, planted from seed and requiring a full growing season with adequate rainfall or irrigation.