Dent corn

Dent corn
Dent corn is named for the dented kernels
Species	Zea mays
Variety	Zea mays var. indentata

Dent corn also known as yellow dent corn, Reid's yellow dent corn, white dent corn, or field corn, is a variety of maize or corn with a high soft starch content. It received its name because of the small indentation ("dent") at the crown of each kernel on a ripe ear of corn. It is a variety developed by northern Illinois farmer James L. Reid. Reid and his father, Robert Reid, moved from Brown County, Ohio to Tazewell County, Illinois in 1846 bringing with them a red corn variety known as "Johnny Hopkins", and crossed it with varieties of flint corn and floury corn. Most of today's hybrid corn varieties and cultivars are derived from it. This variety won a prize at the 1893 World's Fair.

Most of the corn grown in the United States today is yellow dent corn or a closely related variety derived from it. Dent corn is the variety used in food manufacturing as the base ingredient for cornmeal flour (used in the baking of cornbread), corn chips, tortillas and taco shells. Starch derived from this high-starch content variety is turned into plastics, as well as fructose which is used as a sweetener (high-fructose corn syrup) in many processed foods and soft drinks.

Dent corn (Zea mays var. indentata) is a fast-growing, vertically erect, short-lived annual plant and similar to many other varieties of Zea mays. More commonly grown to a height of 2-3 meters (6-9 feet), Zea mays typically grows with a single, hollow main stem often called a stalk (or culm) which exhibits internodes that are cylindrical in the upper part, and alternately grooved on the lower part with a bud in the groove, and with one or occasionally two lateral branches in the leaf axils in the upper part of the plant. The leaves of Zea mays alternate with broad, sword-shaped leaf blades, parallel veins with a prominent mid-rib, and small ligules. The plant has an adventitious, dense, fibrous root system that develops aerial roots at nodes near the soil surface.