Maize Crop Cultivation - I (English)

                                                                             Maize

Botanical name – Zea mays

Family – Poaceae

Origen – Mexico

v  Important Points

F Maize is called the queen of cereal crops.

F Its fruit is of caryopsis type.

F Nutritive value: - Protein 11%, Fat 3.6%, Mineral salts 1.5%, Carbohydrate 66%, Oil 4%.

F A protein called 'gene' is found in maize, in which deficiency of two essential amino acids called tryptophan and lysine is found.

F In Rajasthan, maize is grown in maximum quantity in Chittorgarh, Udaipur, Dungarpur, Banswara.

F The cultivation of baby corn was first started in Thailand in the world.

F Emasculation is the process of removing the pollination of male flowers from plants while making seeds of hybrid maize.

v  Plant Morphology

F Maize plant is a tall herb and reaches up to 3 meters in length.

F Root – There are three types of roots found in the maize plant. (1) Primary (2) Apical roots (3) Ariel roots.

F Stem - The stem of maize is called the stock or culm. There are 8 to 21 nodes in a plant, about 12 to 18 leaves are found.

F Female Flower - The female flower of maize is called silk, from which the cob is formed.

F The male inflorescence of maize is called a tessle. It is located on the uppermost part of the plant.

v  On the basis of botanical properties, it is divided into 7 classes -

1.   Flint Corn - It was first cultivated in India. Its grains are of hard starchy nature.

2.   Dent Corn - It is cultivated the most. It is mainly done in America.

3.   Sweet Corn - It contains more sugar than starch, its seeds are semi-transparent, it is used for canning.

4.   Pop Corn - Its grains are pointed. Its seed coat is hard. The seeds swell a lot when roasted. The optimum temperature for making popcorn is 170⁰ C.

5.   Soft Corn - It is mainly used in the form of flour.

6.   Wax Corn - It is cultivated in China. It is mainly used in making adhesives.

7.   Pod Corn - It is mainly used for fodder.

v  Climate - Maize is a warm climate plant. Suitable temperature for maize is 24-30⁰ C temperature. The suitable temperature at the time of flowering and seed preparation is 25⁰ C. Annual rainfall of 50 to 75 cm or 500 to 700 mm is suitable for maize cultivation.

v  Soil - Deep fertile loamy soil is considered most suitable, whose pH value should be between 6 to 8.5.

v  Varieties of Maize - Sankul variety has been developed by hybridizing indigenous varieties with each other. Its seeds can be used for 3 years. Like - Jawahar, Sona, Vijay, Kesari, Kanchan, Naveen, Lakshmi, Shweta, Prabhat etc.

v  Hybrid Varieties of Maize - Hybrid varieties were first created at the Connecticut Research Center in America in 1921. It took 6 years to make it. Like Lid-103, High Starch, Ganga Safed-4, Ganga-11, Ganga-2, Sartaj, Paras, BL-42, Prakash, Trishula, Kohinoor etc.

v  Madhuri and Priya are varieties of sweet corn.

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