Peer review

As we stated in the last issue, a number of corn mutations have been discovered in the past 40 years. Two of particular interest to the farmer are opaque-2 corn and waxy maize. Opaque-2 corn has particular value as animal feed, particularly for swine; waxy maize may be of value in animal feeding, although its feeding value has not been definitely proven. Interestingly, the potential feed value of both of these corn mutants has been discovered only recently, although the mutants themselves have been around for a long time. Waxy maize has been around since at least 1900. It has been used for the last 30 to 40 years to make an increasing number of food products. In 1970, researchers suspected it might be a good feed for single-stomached animals such as pigs, chickens, and horses. We still are not certain of its true value, but it is at least as good as normal corn for animal feed. The opaque-2 gene was discovered in the 1920's. But it wasn't until 1964 that other researchers discovered that corn with this particular endosperm was high in lysine and tryptophan, two of the amino acids that are essential to animal production, particularly swine.

Text in English