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voice of corn

03.12.2016

American scientists have recorded the sounds that a growing corn stalk makes. Why listen to corn? To save the crops in the fields of Iowa and Illinois.

The worst thing that can happen in a cornfield is a hurricane. A strong wind breaks the fragile high stems of plants, and the crop is on the ground. In such cases, farmers say that the corn has died.

To combat corn lodging, botanists and engineers decided to study in detail how the stalk grows. To do this, they installed piezoelectric contact microphones and recorded the sounds that a growing stem makes. By sounds, you can determine at what point the deformation occurs. The same method is used to "listen" to buildings when it is necessary to determine where there are cracks in the structure.

When a corn stalk breaks, it makes sounds similar to popcorn being cooked, but very quiet, the scientists said. "Now we think that millions of micro-tears occur as plants grow, which trigger the plant's mechanism to 'repair' damage. With constant tears and repair, the plant can grow taller and taller," explains research team leader Douglas Cook.

Knowing exactly how microfractures form will help breeders develop lodging-resistant corn. The next step is computer and magnetic resonance imaging of corn, which will allow modeling the growth of the stalk.

The USA is the world's leading producer of corn. Most of the biomass goes to the production of ethyl alcohol and its derivatives, as well as animal feed; about 11% of corn is used to make sweeteners. Popcorn, canned and fresh corn for human consumption consumes less than 1% of all corn produced.

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