Cultivation And Spread Of Maize In The Northwest

Corn is native to the Americas and was introduced to China around the 16th century.The earliest recorded appearance of corn in the Northwest was during the Ming Dynasty,and since then,corn,a brand new crop,has begun to appear in the Northwest.Gansu,located on the Silk Road,was the first to appear in cultivation,followed by Xinjiang,Shaanxi and other regions.For a long time,corn could not be compared to traditional crops and was grown on a very small scale.Until the Qianlong period,Shaanxi,Gansu,some areas of corn cultivation expanded,but the end of the Qing dynasty,the scale of corn cultivation in the northwest showed a trend of planting differentiation between different regions.After the establishment of the Republican government,statistical agencies conducted statistics on the cultivation of corn in the northwest since the Republic of China,and we began to have a clear understanding of the history of this crop.The Northwest is a vast area,and maize has emerged as a regionally distinctive maize alias as it has spread through the various regions.Among these,the similarity of specific names has facilitated our discussion.In the first period,the names of "wheat"and "western wheat" were used in various regions,and in the later period,"corn" and "bush" appeared.It is easy to identify them,but there are some crops such as "yu mai" that have confusing concepts and are confused with maize.Maize introductions in the Northwest are the result of three different routes in the Northwest,Southwest,and Southeast together.Some areas received the spread of maize from several different route sources;the southern Shaanxi and Gansu Longnan areas bordered several provinces,and the two areas originated from the same source as the maize introduction in the southwest;while the maize in the inland areas of Xinjiang and Gansu likely benefited from the influence of the Silk Road,as previous scholars have suggested;while the maize introduction in Shaanxi was influenced by the role of migrants from the southeast.In some areas,the expansion of maize over-cultivated mountainous areas and caused some environmental damage,but on the positive side,the introduction of maize increased food production,and arable land,enriched the food culture of the people in the northwest,and to some extent contributed to the population growth in the northwest from the Qing to the Republic of China,which has an indelible merit in the historical development process.