[SunkenCiv]

Plant geneticist Jeffrey Ross-Ibarra and an international team determined that maize moved into the Southwest via highland and low coastal routes. (Karin Higgins/UC Davis)

[Balding_Eagle]

Bet no one who helped bring corn here ever imagined that we would grow so much that we could feed ourselves, export millions of bushels around the world, burn it to heat our homes and fuel our cars, and STILL have mountains of surplus.

[Pelham]

Your tax dollars at work.

[GGpaX4DumpedTea]

bump

[Calusa]

"When considered together, the results suggest that the maize of the U.S. Southwest had a complex origin, first entering the U.S. via a highland route about 4,100 years ago and later via a lowland coastal route about 2,000 years ago," said Jeffrey Ross-Ibarra, an associate professor in the Department of Plant Sciences.

Shades of Pre-historic Maiz amnesty

[VerySadAmerican]

I thought they had found an ancient maze that had only two paths. I thought “That would be easy to figure out.”

[Paladin2]

Corn was genetically modified?

[Beowulf9]

Ok. A ‘highland route’ and a ‘lowland coastal route’ but what does that mean?

How about a map of migration?

What, 4100 years ago it came down from the North, like Canada area? 2000 years ago it then came up from Chile?

Why would it come in from the top and later again up from the bottom? It had to cross over to get to the bottom, right?

This is confusing to me.

[blam]

Europeans once teased Americans who ate corn for eating livestock feed.

[yarddog]

Makes me want to go out and buy some Mazola.

I grew up in NW Florida and no matter how careful you were, your corn would always have corn worms, I guess they are called corn borers in the tip of the ears. I mean every ear would have them.

It wasn’t quite as bad as it sounds as you could simply chop off that last couple of inches which would usually not have any useful corn on it anyway.

When I lived in Western Kansas, every single ear of corn would be perfect. Never any damage at all. Also their corn was really good.

[wildbill]

their descendants still use the two routes today, transporting cocaine, marijuana, black tar heroin, and people.

Why do they still use the coastal and highland routes? Well, because depending on where you live, one or the other is the shortest route to the wealthy North where the demand is.

[zzwhale]

Beavis: [in the girl’s bathroom] I am Cornholio! I need T.P. for my Bunghole! Come out with your pants down!