China's fresh-eating corn forms a "sweet in the south, waxy in the north" planting pattern
What development path has China's fresh-eating corn gone through? Where does it stand in the world? What are its future development directions? While answering our questions, experts' accounts also let us sense the popularity of fresh-eating corn.
Fresh-eating corn is corn whose tender fresh ears are harvested and eaten like fruits and vegetables. It mainly includes sweet corn, waxy corn, and the sweet-plus-waxy corn developed in recent years, as well as a small amount of baby corn and others. According to surveys, China's current annual planting area of fresh-eating corn has reached more than 17 million mu, of which sweet corn accounts for more than 5 million mu, waxy corn more than 11 million mu, and sweet-plus-waxy corn more than 1 million mu. And the basic pattern of “sweet in the south, waxy in the north” has taken shape. China's fresh-eating waxy corn has been exported in large quantities year after year to foreign markets such as South Korea. China has become the world's largest producer and consumer of fresh-eating corn. In the breeding of fresh-eating waxy corn and sweet-plus-waxy corn varieties, it has Chinese characteristics and obvious advantages.
Sweet corn is a major vegetable crop in European and American countries and other places. It ranks fourth in the US fresh vegetable market and second among processed vegetables. In recent years, development in China has accelerated, with main planting areas including Guangdong, Guangxi and other provinces, the surroundings of major cities, and contract production and processing areas such as Hebei and Jilin. Waxy corn is a naturally occurring variant type produced after corn was introduced and planted in China, and belongs to the corn type originating in the mountainous areas of Yunnan, Guizhou, and Sichuan in southwest China. It has been planted in China for several hundred years. However, waxy corn breeding in China started relatively late, and the first waxy corn hybrid variety was bred in the 1970s. In the past dozen years or so, the fresh-eating waxy corn industry has developed rapidly, growing from more than 1 million mu at the beginning of this century to more than 10 million mu. In color there are white, yellow, purple, black, and multicolored types, and in maturity there are early, medium, and late combinations, as well as the innovative sweet-plus-waxy type. This has met the diverse needs of the market.
The fresh-eating corn industry is developing very rapidly and has huge potential. Product forms mainly include the sale of fresh ears, quick-frozen ears, quick-frozen kernels, and beverages. There are already more than 1,800 fresh-eating corn and quick-frozen fruit and vegetable processing enterprises nationwide, of which nearly 200 have an annual output of more than 2,000 tons.
In addition, the germplasm of sweet corn, waxy corn, and various colored corns all arises naturally, and has been planted for several hundred years throughout the world and in China. At present, the fresh-eating corn approved for planting and production in China is all non-GMO. Through conventional hybrid breeding methods, breeders combine more superior traits such as yield, quality, taste, and color, making these corns higher-yielding, higher-quality, both tasty and good-looking, and more widely adaptable, so that our corn consumers and the broad community of corn fans can see and taste more diverse, more delicious, and more nutritious types of corn.