Corn was domesticated from its ancestor teosinte in central Mexico beginning about 9,000 years ago by humans selectively breeding the wild plant, transforming its small, hard-shelled kernels into the ...

A unique confluence of archeology, molecular genetics and serendipity guided a collaboration of Mexican and Penn State researchers to a deeper understanding of how modern corn was domesticated from ...

Share on Facebook (Opens in new window) Facebook Share on X (Opens in new window) X UNIVERSITY PARK, Penn. – The discovery of a gene that regulates the angle of root growth in corn may enable the ...

You can’t construct a strong building on a weak foundation, and you can’t grow a great corn crop on a weak root system. From freezing temperatures to voracious underground pests and other threats, ...

A new discovery, reported in a global study that encompassed more than a decade of research, could lead to the breeding of corn crops that can withstand drought and low-nitrogen soil conditions and ...

Corn rootworms can pack a one-two punch. The larvae can burrow in soil and feed on unsuspecting corn roots, or the adult beetles can snip silks and upend pollination. Both infiltrations result in ...

URBANA – With corn being a critical U.S. crop expected to help feed livestock and people around the world and also be a source for the production of clean energy, plant breeders are continually ...

The discovery of a gene that regulates the angle of root growth in corn is a new tool to enable the breeding of deeper-rooting crops with enhanced ability to take up nitrogen, according to an ...

"Root lodging can certainly be a problem for sweet corn, but not because of plant density. What really matters is the specific hybrid and the environment, those major rainfall and wind events that set ...

The 2021 crop year has been quite variable. A dry winter/spring followed by periods of excess rain and dry hot weather has caused considerable plant stress. Corn plants typically give us many ...

This figure from the paper shows the evolution of root types from teosinte to modern corn over the last 10 000 years, simulated using the modeling program OpenSimRoot, which was developed by ...