Each year, Nebraska farmers produce well over one billion bushels of high-quality corn. Nebraska is the nation’s third largest corn producer, behind only Iowa and Illinois.
We’re also second in ethanol production and distillers grain and first in cattle feed. Irrigation is one reason Nebraska consistently produces high volumes of corn. Nebraska has more irrigated corn acres than any other state, thanks in large part to the Ogallala Aquifer—a large underground water supply that lies beneath much of the state.
Drive across Nebraska during the summer and fall and you’ll see miles and miles of corn fields. But did you know that more than 99 percent of that corn is “field corn” and won’t directly end up on your plate for dinner or popped with a little butter and salt for a night at the movies? The other 1% of corn grown represents seven different types of corn.
field corn VS. sweet CORN – WHAT’s THE DIFFERENCE?
Field corn is the classic big ears of yellow dented corn you see dried and harvested in the fall. In fact, it’s sometime called “dent corn” because of the distinctive dent that forms on the kernel as the corn dries. Field corn is grown until it is hard and dry, and then is harvested in the fall to be fed to livestock, processed into ethanol and exported domestically around the world.
Field corn has dozens of uses, but it is most commonly fed to animals or used to make renewable fuels like ethanol to power our cars and trucks. But only part of the kernel is used for ethanol (the starch), the rest of the kernel, including the protein and fat, are then used to make another popular animal feed known as distillers grains.
People don’t eat field corn directly from the field because it’s hard and certainly not sweet. Instead, field corn must go through a mill and be converted to food products and ingredients like corn syrup, corn flakes, yellow corn chips, corn starch or corn flour.
Source : nebraskacorn.gov