ABSTRACT
Introduction Since its domestication from the wild grass teosinte thousands of years ago in Mexico (Hastorf 2009; van Heerwaarden et al. 2011), maize has been a staple food crop. Only recently has maize begun to be exploited for the production of biofuels, predominantly ethanol. Maize is currently the major feedstock converted to ethanol in the United States, accounting for more than 96% of the 2011 production capacity (Boundy et al. 2011). In 2000, the US produced only 1.6 billion gallons of ethanol for fuel purposes; a decade later, in 2010, production had jumped eight-fold to 13.3 billion gallons, with 4.9 billion bushels (or approximately one-third of the available harvest) of corn being used to make fuel ethanol (Boundy et al. 2011). Compared to the millennia of agricultural knowledge supporting the breeding, growth, and utilization of maize as a food source, research into the development of maize as a bioenergy feedstock is in its infancy. Nevertheless, given the fi nite nature of fossil fuels and the continuingly expanding needs of the human population, accelerating the development of sustainable energy sources is imperative.
