When you see corn planters this spring, you're really looking at 9,000 years of progress

In the coming month, we will start to see corn planters, 10 to 30 feet wide, being pulled across the fields as farmers take on the task of getting seeds into soil in preparation for the fall harvest. According to archaeologists, farmers have completed the task of planting for the last 9,000 plus years using the equipment and practices available to them.

Originally called maize, corn first appeared about 7,000 BC in southern Mexico as a grass-like plant called Teosinte. This plant was improved upon over the centuries until corn as we know it today was developed. As a food plant, corn has spread across the world and is now grown on six of seven continents. World wide, the production of corn is greater than either wheat or rice.

When Christopher Columbus came to America, Native Americans in North America were growing an estimated 50,000 acres of corn compared to the approximately 110 million acres grown on the continent today. The acres of corn grown have increased greatly since the days of Columbus, but the yield per acre has grown even more.

There is no record as to the yield per acre of corn grown by Native Americans, but from 1860, when the first records were kept on yield per acre, through the 1930s the average yield per acre for corn in the United States ranged from 20 to 30 bushels per acre. By 2021, the average yield in the United States was 177 bushels per acre, with 250 bushels not uncommon in some places.

The major reason for this increase, beyond better fertilization, was the development of hybrid corn seed primarily developed by an Iowa State University graduate, Henry A. Wallace. He and some friends started the Hi Bred Corn Company in 1926. But change was slow in the farm community and hybrid corn was not accepted widely until after the drought of 1936 when the hybrid varieties were producing double the yield of non-hybrid corn varieties. By 1946, hybrid corn would be adopted by almost 100% of farmers in the United States.

Today, according to the United States Department of Agriculture, more than 13 billion bushels of corn are grown in the United States with 5 billion used for animal feed, 5 billion used for ethanol and the remaining amount used for export and human food. Hybrid corn has become a major food source for a large percentage of the world’s population.

As you watch the tractors and corn planters cross the fields this spring, remember this is the result of 9,000 years of change and development, a history lesson in itself, and one in which our country and its farmers play a leading role.

Note: Henry A. Wallace later became Secretary of Agriculture and vice president of the United States under President Franklin Roosevelt.

Chuck Bell is a former 4-H Educator for Muskingum County.

This article originally appeared on Zanesville Times Recorder: The progression of corn, from field to table, over the last 9,000 years