Introduction to Grain

Grain is the the hard seed or fruit most commonly associated with cereal grasses. You are probably familiar with corn, wheat, oats, rice, rye, and flax, which are all grains. Grain could potentially be considered the first link in the food chain because it is the base of a majority of the foods you eat and products you buy. Corn is the most common type of grain grown in Ohio and the United States.


popcorn

    POP! Facts:
  • The United States grows 45% of the world's corn
  • Averaging 203 acres (an acre is the size of a football field) there are approximatly 37,000 corn farmers in Ohio.
  • More than half of corn grown in the United States is used for animal feed.
  • Ohio is in the "Corn Belt" along with the largest corn producers in the United States. .
 Wheat
Wheat Photo from Far West Rice
strawLocate the states in the corn belt on a map.

The following are some aspects of grain farming that you may be interested in exploring:
  • The biology of corn.
  • Corn is measured by the bushel .
  • Corn is in thousands of products .
  • After corn is grown it has to be harvested.
  • There are many differnt types of corn . (Popcorn comes from a different type of plant than sweet corn!)
  • The no-till method is one approach to growing corn. Neal and Nellie Springer are no-till farmers.
  • One of the most diverse aspects of growing corn, is following it's path beyond the field.

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    Before you go any further in this web site, make a list of connections between corn and products that you use. List as many items as you can in five minutes. After you are finished going through the web-site make a new list of how corn affects your daily life.

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    Create a food chain starting with a corn plant and ending with your favorite meal.
    home While you are exploring the grain section, click on the cornstalk icon to return to this page.

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