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Revision as of 04:06, 26 August 2005

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Zea or Zea Mays?

The sidebar contains several Zea genus, but the main article is highly focused on Zea Mays, especially Zea Mays subsp. mays. Think we need a seperate page for Zea? Mackerm 17:21, 24 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Should this article provide information about corn is grown now rather than relying on an article that is over 100 years old?

in what country?

"The corn will ripen in October or early November;" in what country? should this be replaced with seasons instead? - --Cyprus2k1 22:26, 15 Jul 2004 (UTC)

unrelated sentence??

I removed this sentence because it doesn't seem to have anything to do with the article:

In 1940, Barbara McClintock received the Nobel Prize in Medicine for discovery of transposons while studying maize.

ike9898 15:31, Sep 10, 2004 (UTC)

It is an article about maize and someone got a Nobel Prize for studying maize. I don't see how it is unrelated. Rmhermen 22:20, Sep 10, 2004 (UTC)

In Ontario corn is used exclusivley, outside of an academic environment, see the Ontario Corn Producers' Association. I do not feel that the BBC can be used as a proper source in this regards since this crop is not a staple in the UK. Rather, in areas where it is a staple it is called corn. I grew up on a cash crop farm. Farmers do not use the term maize. People do not go into the grocery store to buy maize. Road side stands do not sell maize.

In an antropological context, however, maize is used exclusivley. In this discipline the crop in discussion is usually not the modern variant and, because the development of maize is of great importance in central and North American archaeology, the distinction is necessary. So, academics use the term maize while the common vernacular is corn.

Maize?

I've never heard anyone call this maize? It sounds made up. - Jerryseinfeld 22:30, 25 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Are you trolling? The second para gives a fairly good explanation of the different names used globally for this crop. The common name in America is corn, but maize is the Spanish name used in much of the rest of the world. External validation can be found at the BBC, any number of dictionaries or some 3 million other web references on Google. -- Solipsist 23:14, 25 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Propagation

Maize cannot self seed, right? It depends upon cultivation for seed dispersal. This should probably be mentioned. Perhaps along with domestication history of maize in the first paragraph.

Baby Corn

Can somebody add some information (or write a new article) about baby corn please? I love that weird little freak of nature and would love to know more about it and its relation to regular corn.

Tallest corn

the internet is an excellent source for fake information from lazy humans. the tallest stalk of maize that was ever grown was probably the "31'-even" stalk that was grown outside washington, iowa in 1946. the day that it was measured, the washington newspaper reported this precise height. look it up for yourself. end the circle of august ignorance.

According to this site "Don Radda of Washington grew the world's tallest corn stalk in 1946; it was thirty-one feet and three inches high." -- WormRunner | Talk 21:54, 15 Mar 2005 (UTC)

As interesting as this factoid is, does it really belong in an encyclopedia article?--nixie 22:01, 15 Mar 2005 (UTC)

I put that in talk because the latest edit of the article was to remove a reference to 30 foot tall corn because User:Rmhermen could not find any source for it. I could have just reverted the article, but felt that putting it in talk first was more politic. -- WormRunner | Talk 22:54, 15 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Terminology

I'm not sure I agree with all of the recent changes you made to the article. I thought the terminology section was informative and important but you removed it. Liblamb 23:15, 19 Apr 2005 (UTC)

I removed that section mostly in the spirit of "Misplaced Pages is not a dictionary", so that the article maize should be about the thing maize, rather than the word "maize". Furthermore, most of that text wasn't even about the word "maize", but about the word "corn", and redundant with text from the article corn (which unfortunately is also mostly about the word, but with perhaps more justification, because it is trying to be a disambiguation page).

Clarification of terminology is crucial when it is an aid to navigation or understanding, but the paragraph in question was not that. Language is a thing in the world, and can be encyclopedic, but that's why there are articles like American and British English differences.

— Pekinensis 00:39, 20 Apr 2005 (UTC)

I disagree also and returned it. It is important to explain what we are talking about before we go into details. Rmhermen 02:23, Apr 20, 2005 (UTC)

Why is it necessary to say that "corn" means "oats" in Scotland in order to talk about maize? — Pekinensis

I am beginning to see Pekinensis' point and have changed the article to acknowledge the variation in terms. Yet, I tried not to duplicate what the corn article says. Liblamb 23:09, 20 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Informally known as corn

When reverting my insertion of the word "informally" into the first sentence, Bkonrad wrote:

I dunno about Canada or Australia but it is almost exlusively known as corn in the U.S., which merits more than an "informally known as")

I won't put it back, but I believe that in technical usage in the US, the plant is generally called maize. For example, a google search for "maize genome" turns up around 20,000 hits, most of which seem to be from US research institutions such as the Maize Genetics/Genomics Database hosted by the University of Missouri, compared to around 3,500 for "corn genome", many of which seem to be from the popular press. Google also believes that the word "maize" appears 55,000 times on US government web pages, so I disagree with the phrase "almost exclusively". I can believe that it is almost exclusively known as corn at the market and at the dinner table, but that is why I used the word "informally". Perhaps a better wording would have been "in non-technical usage", but that puts even more undue emphasis on the question. If it were my article, it would read "Maize, often called corn,", and leave the regional usage trivia out altogether.

— Pekinensis 02:34, 20 Apr 2005 (UTC)

In common usage in the U.S., I suspect that most people would not readily recognize the term "maize". And among those who did know, many would see it as somewhat exotic or even pretentious. I've no problem with the current "often called" phrasing, but if it is accurate, I think the description of regional variations is worth including, though perhaps it doesn't need to figure so prominently as the second paragraph. older≠wiser 02:14, Apr 21, 2005 (UTC)

Corn/Maize in China

Does anyone know when corn became widespread as (human) food, or as a crop? A 2005 Chinese film, set in the Qing dynasty showed people eating corn/maize ears and I was wondering if this was historically accurate. Thanks. ~ Dpr 04:06, 26 August 2005 (UTC)