Maize

Basics

• Also known (mainly in the USA) as "Corn"
• A Cereal Grain native to the North/Central Americas
• Was Domesticated first by the indigenous peoples in southern Mexico ~10,000 years ago
• Currently the most efficnent per-unit of land route to Sugar and thus Ethanol short of Sugarcane ?

Best Practices

• From Wikipedia:
  • "Cold-intolerant, in the temperate zones maize must be planted in the spring. Its root system is generally shallow, so the plant is dependent on soil moisture. As a plant that uses C4 carbon fixation, maize is a considerably more water-efficient crop than plants that use C3 carbon fixation such as alfalfa and soybeans. Maize is most sensitive to drought at the time of silk emergence, when the flowers are ready for pollination. In the United States, a good harvest was traditionally predicted if the maize was "knee-high by the Fourth of July", although modern hybrids generally exceed this growth rate."

Tools Needed

Small Scale

• A Scythe + Hay Rake / Rake
• An Open Source Thresher
• Either a small Broadcast Spreader or a Handheld Seed Drill
  • Can corn be done with a Paper Pot Planter is the question

Mid-Scale

• Microcombine

Large Scale

• Ie Best Practices and Sky is the Limit Funds Wise:
  • Subsurface Drip Irrigation + The Means to Deploy+Maintain It
  • Water Table Management / Drain Tile + Agricultural Runoff Treatment system such as Retention Ponds and an Algal Turf Scrubber etc followed by systems akin to what is used for Reclaimed Water and/or Swales / Constructed Wetlands etc to allow for Groundwater Recharge
  • Something on the High End of BHP Power of Various Tractors to tow all the gear
  • A Combine Harvester with High BHP + Connectivity using ISO 11783 etc
  • A Grain Cart / Auger Wagon / Grain Auger Wagon
  • A Semi-Truck equipped with a Bale Deck / Bale Carrier Trailer
  • Controlled Traffic Farming / Agricultural Autopilot / Smart Farming stuff
  • A Tow Behind Baler for MOG / Corn Stover
  • A Tow Behind Sprayer for application of Liquids (Be it Fertilizer , Pesticides (and/or Organic Permissible Pesticides ) and/or Compost Tea
    • MAY be able to be used for mass-inoculation for Huitlacoche ALTHOUGH
      • 1.) Demand Probably Isn’t There
      • 2.) May not need mechanization/not be worth it
      • 3.) May not work (Also would need the specialized tall equipment to get ABOVE the corn)
  • The Non-Glycophosphate Based Crop Desiccation System
  • Fuel Storage + Fueling Infrastructure for all the gear

Internal Links

• Corn Stover
• Nixtamalization

External Links

• The Wikipedia Page on Maize
• The (lol) Ohio State University Page for their Agronomic Crops Network on Corn