Download or read book The Story of the Maize Plant written by Paul Weatherwax and published by . This book was released on 1923 with total page 280 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Maize Cobs and Cultures History of Zea mays L written by John Staller and published by Springer Science & Business Media. This book was released on 2009-12-02 with total page 266 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Our perceptions and conceptions regarding the roles and importance of maize to ancient economies is largely a product of scientific research on the plant itself, developed for the most part out of botanical research, and its recent role as one of the most important economic staples in the world. Anthropological research in the early part of the last century based largely upon the historical particularistic approach of the Boasian tradition provided the first evidence that challenged the assumptions about the economic importance of maize to sociocultural developments for scholars of prehistory. Subsequent ethnobotanic and archaeological studies showed that the role of maize among Native American cultures was much more complex than just as a food staple. In Maize Cobs and Cultures, John Staller provides a survey of the ethnohistory and the scientific, botanical and biological research of maize, complemented by reviews on the ethnobotanic, interdisciplinary and multidisciplinary methodologies.
Download or read book Maize for the Gods written by Michael Blake and published by Univ of California Press. This book was released on 2015-08-28 with total page 280 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Maize is the worldÕs most productive food and industrial crop, grown in more than 160 countries and on every continent except Antarctica. If by some catastrophe maize were to disappear from our food supply chain, vast numbers of people would starve and global economies would rapidly collapse. How did we come to be so dependent on this one plant? Maize for the Gods brings together new research by archaeologists, archaeobotanists, plant geneticists, and a host of other specialists to explore the complex ways that this single plant and the peoples who domesticated it came to be inextricably entangled with one another over the past nine millennia. Tracing maize from its first appearance and domestication in ancient campsites and settlements in Mexico to its intercontinental journey through most of North and South America, this history also tells the story of the artistic creativity, technological prowess, and social, political, and economic resilience of AmericaÕs first peoples.
Download or read book Midwest Maize written by Cynthia Clampitt and published by University of Illinois Press. This book was released on 2015-02-28 with total page 305 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Food historian Cynthia Clampitt pens the epic story of what happened when Mesoamerican farmers bred a nondescript grass into a staff of life so prolific, so protean, that it represents nothing less than one of humankind's greatest achievements. Blending history with expert reportage, she traces the disparate threads that have woven corn into the fabric of our diet, politics, economy, science, and cuisine. At the same time she explores its future as a source of energy and the foundation of seemingly limitless green technologies. The result is a bourbon-to-biofuels portrait of the astonishing plant that sustains the world.
Download or read book Endangered Maize written by Helen Anne Curry and published by Univ of California Press. This book was released on 2022-01-25 with total page 336 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Charting the political, social, and environmental history of efforts to conserve crop diversity. Many people worry that we're losing genetic diversity in the foods we eat. Over the past century, crop varieties standardized for industrial agriculture have increasingly dominated farm fields. Concerned about what this transition means for the future of food, scientists, farmers, and eaters have sought to protect fruits, grains, and vegetables they consider endangered. They have organized high-tech genebanks and heritage seed swaps. They have combed fields for ancient landraces and sought farmers growing Indigenous varieties. Behind this widespread concern for the loss of plant diversity lies another extinction narrative that concerns the survival of farmers themselves, a story that is often obscured by urgent calls to collect and preserve. Endangered Maize draws on the rich history of corn in Mexico and the United States to uncover this hidden narrative and show how it shaped the conservation strategies adopted by scientists, states, and citizens. In Endangered Maize, historian Helen Anne Curry investigates more than a hundred years of agriculture and conservation practices to understand the tasks that farmers and researchers have considered essential to maintaining crop diversity. Through the contours of efforts to preserve diversity in one of the world's most important crops, Curry reveals how those who sought to protect native, traditional, and heritage crops forged their methods around the expectation that social, political, and economic transformations would eliminate diverse communities and cultures. In this fascinating study of how cultural narratives shape science, Curry argues for new understandings of endangerment and alternative strategies to protect and preserve crop diversity.
Download or read book The Legend of Maize written by Kevin Earl and published by . This book was released on 2021-04-29 with total page 30 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An ancient Aztec myth explains the how they got corn and why it is so important to their culture. This colorfully illustrated children's story uses geometric patterns and traditional motifs to represent this important Aztec legend.
Download or read book Maize and Grace written by James C. McCann and published by Harvard University Press. This book was released on 2007-09-15 with total page 304 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Sometime around 1500 AD, an African farmer planted a maize seed imported from the New World. That act set in motion the remarkable saga of one of the world’s most influential crops—one that would transform the future of Africa and of the Atlantic world. Africa’s experience with maize is distinctive but also instructive from a global perspective: experts predict that by 2020 maize will become the world’s most cultivated crop. James C. McCann moves easily from the village level to the continental scale, from the medieval to the modern, as he explains the science of maize production and explores how the crop has imprinted itself on Africa’s agrarian and urban landscapes. Today, maize accounts for more than half the calories people consume in many African countries. During the twentieth century, a tidal wave of maize engulfed the continent, and supplanted Africa’s own historical grain crops—sorghum, millet, and rice. In the metamorphosis of maize from an exotic visitor into a quintessentially African crop, in its transformation from vegetable to grain, and from curiosity to staple, lies a revealing story of cultural adaptation. As it unfolds, we see how this sixteenth-century stranger has become indispensable to Africa’s fields, storehouses, and diets, and has embedded itself in Africa’s political, economic, and social relations. The recent spread of maize has been alarmingly fast, with implications largely overlooked by the media and policymakers. McCann’s compelling history offers insight into the profound influence of a single crop on African culture, health, technological innovation, and the future of the world’s food supply.
Download or read book The Story of Corn written by Betty Harper Fussell and published by UNM Press. This book was released on 2004 with total page 372 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In an authoritative, wise, and wholly original blend of social history, art, science, and anthropology, Fussell tells the story of corn in a narrative that is as uniquely hybrid as her subject. The great epic of this amazing grain makes clear that all the civilizations of the Western hemisphere have been built on corn. 250 photos and line drawings.
Download or read book The Maize Handbook written by Michael Freeling and published by Springer Science & Business Media. This book was released on 2013-06-29 with total page 776 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Maize Handbook represents the collective efforts of the maize research community to enumerate the key steps of standard procedures and to disseminate these protocols for the common good. Although the material in this volume is drawn from experience with maize, many of the procedures, protocols, and descriptions are applicable to other higher plants, particularly to other grasses. The power and resolution of experiments with maize depend on the wide range of specialized genetic techniques and marked stocks; these materials are available today as the culmination of nearly 100 years of genetic research. A major goal of this volume is to introduce this genetical legacy and to highlight current stock construction programs that will soon benefit our work, e. g. high-density RFLP maps, deletion stocks, etc. Both stock construction and maintenance are relatively straightforward in maize as a result of the ease of crossing and the longevity of stored seeds. Crossing is facilitated by the separate staminate (tassel) and pistillate (ear) flowers, a feature almost unique to maize. On the other hand, many of the genetic methodologies utilized with maize, including the precision of record keeping, can be adapted to other plants. Facile communication and a spirit of co-operation have characterized the maize genetics community since its earliest days. Starting in the 1930s, institutions such as annual Maize Genetics Cooperation Newsletter, the Maize Genetics Stock Center, and the annual maize genetics meeting provide continuity to the field.
Download or read book Darwin s Harvest written by Timothy J. Motley and published by Columbia University Press. This book was released on 2006-01-04 with total page 408 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Darwin's Harvest addresses concerns that we are losing the diversity of crop plants that provide food for most of the world. With contributions from evolutionary biologists, geneticists, agronomists, molecular biologists, and anthropologists, this collection discusses how economic development, loss of heirloom varieties and wild ancestors, and modern agricultural techniques have endangered the genetic diversity needed to keep agricultural crops vital and capable of adaptation. Drawing on the most up-to-date data, the contributors review the utilization of molecular techniques to understand crop evolution. They explore current research on various crop plants of both temperate and tropical origin, including maize, sunflower, avocado, sugarcane, and wheat. The chapters in Darwin's Harvest also provide solid background for understanding many recent discoveries concerning the origins of crops and the influence of human migration and farming practices on the genetics of our modern foods.
Download or read book Maize Kernel Development written by Brian A Larkins and published by CABI. This book was released on 2017-11-21 with total page 253 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This is an authoritative book that acts as a guide to understanding maize kernel development. Written by a team of experts, it covers topics spanning pre- and post-fertilization events, embryo and endosperm development, grain filling and maturation, and factors influencing crop yield. It explores the significance of maize and other cereal grains, existing hypotheses and research, and important gaps in our knowledge and how we might fill them. This is a valuable resource for researchers of maize and other cereals, and anyone working on basic or applied science in the fields of seed development, plant genetics, and crop physiology.
Download or read book Maize written by Joseph Burtt-Davy and published by . This book was released on 1914 with total page 884 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book The Popol Vuh written by Lewis Spence and published by New York : AMS Press. This book was released on 1908 with total page 80 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Beautiful Corn written by Anthony Boutard and published by New Society Publishers. This book was released on 2012-09-25 with total page 234 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: FROM SEED TO PLATE - THE SEASONS OF A REMARKABLE CROP "Part love song to an ancient grain, part elevated instruction on how to grow, cook and consume it, part history and animated story, Beautiful Corn opens our eyes to a food plant that humans have both cultivated and been cultivated by." ---Michael Ableman, farmer, author of "From The Good Earth, On Good Land, and Fields Of Plenty" Corn is the grain of the Americas. In terms of culinary uses, it is amazingly diverse, reflecting the breathtaking variety of the continents and environments from which it evolved. The consummate immigrant, corn is grown extensively on every continent except Antarctica. Much more than a simple how-to book, "Beautiful Corn" weaves together this unique plant's contribution to our culture, its distinctive biology and the practical information needed to grow and enjoy it at home. Market farmer and naturalist Anthony Boutard advocates a return to this traditional, nourishing and beautiful whole grain, in all of its rich diversity. Come along on this lyrical and inspiring journey through the seasons, and discover the pure joy of restoring heritage corn varieties to our tables. An unabashed celebration of a much-maligned culinary treasure, Beautiful Corn will forever change the way you view this remarkable plant. "Anthony Boutard tells a story of corn we haven't heard--not as fuel, or livestock feed, or food product--but as whole food, with the flavor and diversity that comes with thoughtful farming. Part history, part how-to manual (Boutard grows, grinds and cooks corn in all its variations), "Beautiful Corn" returns the culture, and the cuisine, to our most abundant and mistreated crop."---Dan Barber, Chef / Co-Owner, Blue Hill and Blue Hill at Stone Barns "In this lyrical love letter to an ancient, fascinating food, Anthony Boutard offers us a rich harvest of history, a primer on growing the best varieties, the close observations of a brilliant, insatiably curious farmer, and some tasty recipes to boot."--Lorna Sass, author of the James Beard Award winning "Whole Grains Every Day, Every Way" Anthony Boutard is a widely recognized advocate in the local food movement, well-known for his efforts in reviving long-lost crops and bringing little-known varieties to market. He and his wife Carol own Ayers Creek Farm, a 144-acre organic market farm in Gaston, Oregon specializing in berries, beans, grains and greens for sale to local restaurants and markets.
Download or read book Corn written by Gare Thompson and published by . This book was released on 1998 with total page 28 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Examines how corn began to grow in the early Americas, why it was important to Native Americans, and how it became a staple product in many other countries.
Download or read book People and Plants written by Creighton Thomas Shay and published by . This book was released on 2004-01-01 with total page 149 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book The Life and Times of Corn written by and published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. This book was released on 2009 with total page 40 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Facts and illustrations tell the story of corn, the giant of grains.
