Dent corn, also known as grain corn, is a type of

field corn Field corn, also known as cow corn, is a North American term for maize (''Zea mays'') grown for livestock fodder (silage), ethanol, cereal, and processed food products. The principal field corn varieties are dent corn, flint corn, flour corn (also ...

with a high soft

starch Starch or amylum is a polymeric carbohydrate consisting of numerous glucose units joined by glycosidic bonds. This polysaccharide is produced by most green plants for energy storage. Worldwide, it is the most common carbohydrate in human diets ...

content. It received its name because of the small indentation, or "dent", at the crown of each

kernel Kernel may refer to: Computing * Kernel (operating system), the central component of most operating systems * Kernel (image processing), a matrix used for image convolution * Compute kernel, in GPGPU programming * Kernel method, in machine learn ...

on a ripe ear of corn. Reid's Yellow Dent is a variety developed by central Illinois farmer James L. Reid. Reid and his father, Robert Reid, moved from

Brown County, Ohio Brown County is a county in the U.S. state of Ohio. As of the 2020 United States Census, the population was 43,676. The county seat is Georgetown. The county was created in 1818 and is named for Major General Jacob Brown, an officer in the War ...

Tazewell County, Illinois Tazewell County () is a county in the U.S. state of Illinois. According to the 2010 census, it had a population of 135,394. Its county seat and largest city is Pekin. It is pronounced with a short "a", to rhyme with "razz" rather than "raze." ...

in 1846 bringing with them a red corn variety known as "Johnny Hopkins", and crossed it with varieties of

flint corn Flint corn (''Zea mays'' var. ''indurata''; also known as Indian corn or sometimes calico corn) is a variant of maize, the same species as common corn. Because each kernel has a hard outer layer to protect the soft endosperm, it is likened to bei ...

and

flour corn Flour corn (''Zea mays'' var. ''amylacea'') is a variety of corn with a soft starchy endosperm and a thin pericarp. It is primarily used to make corn flour. This type, frequently found in Aztec and Inca graves, is widely grown in the drier parts ...

. Most of today's hybrid corn varieties and cultivars are derived from it. This variety won a prize at the

1893 World's Fair The World's Columbian Exposition (also known as the Chicago World's Fair) was a world's fair held in Chicago in 1893 to celebrate the 400th anniversary of Christopher Columbus's arrival in the New World in 1492. The centerpiece of the Fair, hel ...

. Most of the corn grown in the United States today is yellow dent corn or a closely related variety derived from it. Dent corn is the variety used in food manufacturing as the base ingredient for cornmeal flour (used in the baking of cornbread),

corn chip Corn chips are a snack food made from cornmeal fried in oil or baked, usually in the shape of a small noodle or scoop. Corn chips are thick, rigid and very crunchy. Corn chips have the strong aroma and flavor of roasted corn, and are often hea ...

tortilla A tortilla (, ) is a thin, circular unleavened flatbread originally made from maize hominy meal, and now also from wheat flour. The Aztecs and other Nahuatl speakers called tortillas ''tlaxcalli'' (). First made by the indigenous peoples of Me ...

s, and taco shells. Starch derived from this high-starch content variety is turned into

plastics Plastics are a wide range of synthetic polymers, synthetic or semi-synthetic materials that use polymers as a main ingredient. Their Plasticity (physics), plasticity makes it possible for plastics to be Injection moulding, moulded, Extrusion, e ...

, as well as

fructose Fructose, or fruit sugar, is a Ketose, ketonic monosaccharide, simple sugar found in many plants, where it is often bonded to glucose to form the disaccharide sucrose. It is one of the three dietary monosaccharides, along with glucose and galacto ...

which is used as a sweetener (

high-fructose corn syrup High-fructose corn syrup (HFCS), also known as glucose–fructose, isoglucose and glucose–fructose syrup, is a sweetener made from corn starch. As in the production of conventional corn syrup, the starch is broken down into glucose by enzy ...

) in many processed foods and soft drinks. The six major types of corn are dent corn,

, pod corn,

popcorn Popcorn (also called popped corn, popcorns or pop-corn) is a variety of corn kernel which expands and puffs up when heated; the same names also refer to the foodstuff produced by the expansion. A popcorn kernel's strong hull contains the se ...

, and sweet corn.

Taxonomy

* ''Zea mays'' var. ''indentata'', synonym ''Zea indentata'' Sturtev., was identified and published by American agronomist and botanist

Edward Lewis Sturtevant Edward Lewis Sturtevant (January 23, 1842 – July 30, 1898) was an American agronomist and botanist who wrote ''Sturtevant's Edible Plants of the World.'' An enormously prolific author, he was considered one of the giants of American agricultura ...

(1842–1898). It is categorized as a species within the family

Poaceae Poaceae () or Gramineae () is a large and nearly ubiquitous family of monocotyledonous flowering plants commonly known as grasses. It includes the cereal grasses, bamboos and the grasses of natural grassland and species cultivated in lawns an ...

, subfamily

Panicoideae Panicoideae is the second-largest subfamily of the grasses with over 3,500 species, mainly distributed in warm temperate and tropical regions. It comprises some important agricultural crops, including sugarcane, maize (or corn), sorghum, and swi ...

, and tribe

Andropogoneae The Andropogoneae, sometimes called the sorghum tribe, are a large tribe of grasses (family Poaceae) with roughly 1,200 species in 90 genera, mainly distributed in tropical and subtropical areas. They include such important crops as maize (corn), ...

—a tribe of grasses that use the NADP–malic enzyme subtype of C₄ photosynthesis in carbon fixation.

Description

Dent corn (''Zea mays'' var. ''indentata'') is a fast-growing, vertically erect, short-lived

annual plant An annual plant is a plant that completes its life cycle, from germination to the production of seeds, within one growing season, and then dies. The length of growing seasons and period in which they take place vary according to geographical ...

and similar to many other varieties of ''Zea mays''.Hannaway, David B., and Larson, Christina. Oregon State University
Corn (Zea mays L.)
. Retrieved 5 December 2013. More commonly grown to a height of 2–3 meters (6–9 feet), ''Zea mays'' typically grows with a single, hollow main stem often called a stalk (or culm) which exhibits

internodes A stem is one of two main structural axes of a vascular plant, the other being the root. It supports leaves, flowers and fruits, transports water and dissolved substances between the roots and the shoots in the xylem and phloem, stores nutrien ...

that are cylindrical in the upper part and alternately grooved in the lower part with a bud in the groove. One or occasionally two lateral branches emerge from the leaf axils in the upper part of the plant. The

leaves A leaf (plural, : leaves) is any of the principal appendages of a vascular plant plant stem, stem, usually borne laterally aboveground and specialized for photosynthesis. Leaves are collectively called foliage, as in "autumn foliage", wh ...

of ''Zea mays'' alternate with broad, sword-shaped leaf blades, parallel veins with a prominent mid-rib, and small

ligule A ligule (from "strap", variant of ''lingula'', from ''lingua'' "tongue") is a thin outgrowth at the junction of leaf and leafstalk of many grasses (Poaceae) and sedges. A ligule is also a strap-shaped extension of the corolla, such as that of a ...

s. The plant has an

adventitious Important structures in plant development are buds, shoots, roots, leaves, and flowers; plants produce these tissues and structures throughout their life from meristems located at the tips of organs, or between mature tissues. Thus, a living plan ...

, dense, fibrous root system that develops aerial roots at nodes near the soil surface. The flowers of ''Zea mays'' are

monoecious Monoecy (; adj. monoecious ) is a sexual system in seed plants where separate male and female cones or flowers are present on the same plant. It is a monomorphic sexual system alongside gynomonoecy, andromonoecy and trimonoecy. Monoecy is conne ...

and are born in separate parts of the plant. The female flower, or

ear An ear is the organ that enables hearing and, in mammals, body balance using the vestibular system. In mammals, the ear is usually described as having three parts—the outer ear, the middle ear and the inner ear. The outer ear consists of ...

, is an

inflorescence An inflorescence is a group or cluster of flowers arranged on a stem that is composed of a main branch or a complicated arrangement of branches. Morphologically, it is the modified part of the shoot of seed plants where flowers are formed o ...

that develops from

axillary bud The axillary bud (or lateral bud) is an embryonic or organogenic shoot located in the axil of a leaf. Each bud has the potential to form shoots, and may be specialized in producing either vegetative shoots (stems and branches) or reproductive sh ...

apices The apex is the highest point of something. The word may also refer to: Arts and media Fictional entities * Apex (comics), a teenaged super villainess in the Marvel Universe * Ape-X, a super-intelligent ape in the Squadron Supreme universe *Apex ...

several nodes below the stem apex. The male flower, or tassel, develops from the stem apex. Anthers on the tassel

dehisce Dehiscence is the splitting of a mature plant structure along a built-in line of weakness to release its contents. This is common among fruits, anthers and sporangia. Sometimes this involves the complete detachment of a part; structures that op ...

and release

pollen Pollen is a powdery substance produced by seed plants. It consists of pollen grains (highly reduced microgametophytes), which produce male gametes (sperm cells). Pollen grains have a hard coat made of sporopollenin that protects the gametophyt ...

, which is dispersed by the wind (anemophilous). Ears consist of a corncob, or

rachis In biology, a rachis (from the grc, ῥάχις [], "backbone, spine") is a main axis or "shaft". In zoology and microbiology In vertebrates, ''rachis'' can refer to the series of articulated vertebrae, which encase the spinal cord. In this c ...

, with rows of

sessile Sessility, or sessile, may refer to: * Sessility (motility), organisms which are not able to move about * Sessility (botany), flowers or leaves that grow directly from the stem or peduncle of a plant * Sessility (medicine), tumors and polyps that ...

spikelet A spikelet, in botany, describes the typical arrangement of the flowers of grasses, sedges and some other Monocots. Each spikelet has one or more florets. The spikelets are further grouped into panicles or spikes. The part of the spikelet that ...

s bearing

kernels Kernel may refer to: Computing * Kernel (operating system), the central component of most operating systems * Kernel (image processing), a matrix used for image convolution * Compute kernel, in GPGPU programming * Kernel method, in machine learnin ...

, or caryopses, and tightly enveloped by several layers of ear leaves commonly called

husk Husk (or hull) in botany is the outer shell or coating of a seed. In the United States, the term husk often refers to the leafy outer covering of an ear of maize (corn) as it grows on the plant. Literally, a husk or hull includes the protective ...

s. The kernels vary from variety to variety, and what distinguishes ''Zea mays'' var. ''indentata'' from other varieties of ''Zea mays'' is the small indentation ("dent") that develops at the crown of each

. Comparatively,

has a harder-textured, more rounded kernel that may display a slight depression but not a distinct dent.

Cultivation

Dent corn is typically cultivated as a

row crop A row crop is a crop that can be planted in rows wide enough to allow it to be tilled or otherwise cultivated by agricultural machinery, machinery tailored for the seasonal activities of row crops. Such crops are sown by drilling or transplanti ...

grown commercially for grain and fodder. Cultivars developed for commercial cultivation are either single- or double-cross hybrids bred for special growing areas, soils, or climatic conditions.

Use

According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Federal Grain Inspection Service (FGIS), there are two categories of dent corn hybrids. These hybrids are categorized by the colour of the kernels—either yellow or white. Yellow dent corn is produced primarily for animal feed and industrial uses such as ethanol and cooking oils.U.S. Department of Agriculture, Grain Inspection, Packers & Stockyards Administration
Commodity Image Gallery: Yellow Dent Corn
(2012). Retrieved 10 December 2013. FGIS identifies that "white food corn hybrids are dent corn... are typically contracted and sold to dry-mill processors and used in alkaline cooking processes for making masa, tortilla chips, snack foods, and grits" as well as producing food-grade starch and paper.U.S. Department of Agriculture, Grain Inspection, Packers & Stockyards Administration

(2012). Retrieved 10 December 2013. Dependent on their starch content, some yellow dent corn hybrids are grown and used in the production of food for human consumption.

References

{{Taxonbar, from=Q16955875 Maize varieties

Taxonomy

Description

Cultivation

Use

See also

References