When you think of corn, this is what comes to mind.

It can be grilled,
boiled, or baked. It can be eaten fresh or canned even creamed. But what
if we were to tell you this iconic staple of BBQ actually originated from (flip
slide)

This. Balsas Teosinte. A grass going back thousands of years which is

the earliest relative of modern corn. But how did this get to (change slide)

This. Our sweet corn eaten of the fourth of july. Well, that is what we are
here to tell you. In (change slide)

THE EVOLUTION OF CORN!

To start, would anyone like to guess how many different varieties of corn
there are?

The answer is 12. At the beginning of the 1900s there were more than
300 but they have died out due to natural and artificial selection.

So, what is so unique about the evolution of corn? (Pause) Many of

its ancestors are here still around today.

In the beginning there was..

Balsas Teosinte. It was a grass native to Mexico, Honduras, Guatemala,

and Nicaragua and is still growing today. This could be due to its high
resistance to disease.

Then 7000 years later we will see.

The first edible ancestor of corn.

Which is maize. Before it was domesticated maize cobs were only about
an inch long. But, the most important evolutionary advancement was the
separation of the Pollen and Ovule creating the iconic corn kernels.

This image shows the size differences between corn and its ancestors.

At this time in the evolutionary process, a mutation of maize shows up.

Named pod corn.
From what you can already tell from this picture, pod corn is strange. It
has the material making up the cob also creating a outer wrapping.

Back to maize, 9,000 years ago.

Maize gets Domesticated!

Here is a picture of fossilized corn cobs. It shows the progression of size

of the cob and kernel as corn evolved

So far we have only been discussing maize. But how did maize get to
corn?

1494

This brings us to the first modern type of corn, flint corn

Zea Mays Indurata also known as flint corn starts to appear. It has less
water content than any other type of corn. It had lot of nutritional value,
most of which is what was giving the corn its distinctive color.

You might also know flint corn as indian corn or calico corn. Flint corn is
still popular today especially as thanksgiving decorations.

Another famous thing to come from Flint corn is the movie theater
staple...

Popcorn

This finally brings us to what will soon become our Sweet Corn.

In the Early 1800s..

The second type of modern corn, Dent Corn, is created through artificial
selection.

Dent corn can be identified by a small dent at the crown of each kernel.
All sweet corn has been genetically modified. We dont know who
modified the corn to give it is yellow color. However, it was probably by
Native Americans. In 1779 American troops seized a Native American
farm already growing yellow corn. It gets it yellow hue from an increase in
levels of Beta Carotene and Vitamin A. In fact, it is possible there was
once a bright orange corn with even more carotene but that no longer
exists. After that, American planters continued to cross breed different
types of corn to give it better traits for consumption. They made the corn
sweeter and last longer unfortunately with a higher sugar content the corn
also lost some of it creamy texture.

That finally bring us to the modern sweet corn.

There are two varieties Yellow and White. We will talk about the white
corn first.

It is a type of sweet corn with a higher sugar to starch ratio and is used for
human consumption. It also has a high water content as compared to the
yellow corn. That fact that its white, not yellow means less beta carotene
and therefore less nutritional value. White corn also has many other uses
such as starch, paper, and plastic.

Finally we get to the Yellow sweet corn.

As we have already stated it is high in beta carotene. It is the perfected

version of the corn from the 1800s farmers. It has been continually been
put through artificial selection to produce more cobs, have a higher sugar
content, and take less water.

And here is our final product. A large cob, yellow kernels, and a sweet
taste. It only took many thousands of years to get from our grass Balsas
teosinte to sweet corn.

We would like to extend a special thanks to The National Corn Handbook.

#
To review what we have said, we will be have a short game show.

Welcome to our review Game show Thats so Corny the rules are as
follows:
Try to answer individually
Whoever raises their hand first gets to answer first.
If you have already won dont answer again to give other people a try
Lets go to the first question

Question 1

What makes pod corn different from other types of corn?

Question 2

What 2 vitamins does Yellow corn have more of then White corn?

Last question

Name three things farmers modified in corn to make it more beneficial

crop for humans.

Thanks for listening

And here is our works cited