ABSTRACT
Maize in the United States and Europe is cultivated as grain for food, feed and processing, as well as green maize for silage or ethanol and biogas production, thus having an impact on key sectors such as livestock and energy production (USDA, 2011; Vasileiadis et al., 2011). In the United States, maize is grown in most States, but production is concentrated in the Midwest, with Iowa and Illinois being the two top maize-producing States accounting for about one-third of the production in the country (USDA, 2011). In 2014, the total maize area harvested was 33.6 million hectares of grain maize and 2.6 million hectares of silage maize, with a total production of 361 million tonnes of grain (FAOSTAT, 2016).
