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Post by blueadzuki on Oct 2, 2013 15:49:27 GMT -5
Saw something similar today in my Farmer's marked meandering. One of the corn sellers I buy from regularly (though not this year; he has yet to get anyting equal to or better than what I have found at the supermarket) had a pile of popcorn cobs that obviously had had more or less the same thing happened. Mostly powder pink and blue (the stuff was probably a Hopi Pink/Blue mix, based on the shades) but here and there was the odd yellow kernel that showed where a little pollen from a more "conventional" popcorn had gotten in (somewhat tellingly, a lot of the yellow kernels were slightly bigger than their brothers of other colors from different mothers, indicating Daddy was probably a bigger seeded corn)as well as a smattering of kernels of middle orange (pink over yellow) and greeny (blue over yellow). Speaking of cross pollination, there is something important for all of you thinking about popcorn breeding to keep in mind. A lot of popcorns (by no means all but many) have a gene or genes (called the P gene, I think)if a popcorn has the gene, it will ONLY cross with other popcorns; pollen of other corn types will not take. Popcorn without the gene will cross with other corns (as well as P gene popcorns) and can sometimes be used as a "bridge" to get a gene into a p-gene line, but it is an extra step, and it is something to be aware of. I know Joseph knows about it, so presumably all of the popcorn he is planning to use in his crosses is P-gene free. And I think someone did a list once of which named varieties have and do not have crossing problems. Oh and Joeseph, I actually inadvertently found the answer to that question I brought up on another thread (what happens when sweetcorn pollen gets in a flour corn and vice versa.Paiute sweet corn has just that; while it is mostly a sweetcorn, thanks to some errant pollen in it's ancestry it sometimes throws the odd floury kernel as well. At least, the strain sold by Native Seed's does (I don't remember any floury kernels in the packed of Paiute I used, which came from Kokopelli, but I imagine that rogueing out the kernels before the seed is packed is a pretty simply matter if you aren't working with all that much)
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Post by DarJones on Oct 2, 2013 16:54:28 GMT -5
The gene is often referred to in literature as "g" but if you look it up on maizegdb, it is now known as ga1 (gametophyte factor1). It enhances the reproductive efficiency of ga1 pollen on ga1 silks.
Sweet corn often crosses with popcorn and under some conditions will do so at a very low rate even if the popcorn has ga1.
a critical trait of both popcorn and sweetcorn is that both have large areas of hard flinty starch and small areas of soft powdery starch. Genetically, popcorn is closer to sweet corn than to flint corn.
The cross of Cherokee Squaw X Silver King (se+) I made a few years ago resulted in a lot of kernels that have too much soft starch for a sweet corn. I am working to reduce that trait so it will be a better flavored sweet corn.
We could have an entire conversation about various sweet corn genes. Whipples White sweet corn for example has 2 genes that give it the exceptional sweetness. My original seed from Glenn Drowns has a significant amount of segregation for them. I have to deliberately select for the sweetest kernels to avoid rapid segregation into dimpled kernels instead of wrinkled kernels. I suspect the two genes are su and du which Mangelsdorf wrote up as the "super sugary" genotype. I suspect a genotype of su + du + se is in the makeup of most of the commercial non-sh2 sweetcorn on the market today.
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Post by blueadzuki on Oct 2, 2013 17:35:57 GMT -5
I defer to your greater knowledge. Though actually I would imagine that sweet/pop crosses would result in a lot of corn that was not much good for anything. A popcorn pericarp over a sweet kernel would presumably result in some seriously unpleasantly tough and chewy corn. Sweet can get into ga1? Hmm I may have to re things some things then. When I found that miniature cob two years ago that had the errant sweet kernels. I made a point of keeping the other kernels from the cob (even though none of them were of particular interest to me) because I though the fact it had taken sweet pollen PROVED it could not have ga1, and someone out there might need such seed at some point. But if sweet pollen can take even if it does have ga1 who knows. It's probably still free of it. Heck it may itself be part regular flint, given the kernel shape (like a lot of the "not pop" minis I found back then, the kernels of that one are pretty wide and flat, more like those of a large sized corn than what one usually sees in popcorns) I never sacrificed any to the popper to check (same reason, I thought someone might need them and 1 cobs worth of corn doesn't really go all that far) Speaking of kernel shapes, I need a favor so I stop possibly making an ass of myself. Can someone tell me the actual definition of what "shoepeg" means in a corn? I've been referring to that odd little mini dent I have (the one that has 36 rows on a ear with a diameter of maybe an inch and a quarter) as a "shoepeg", because I though that the definition of a shoepeg corn was one that had kernels that were very thin and linear (like little planks stood up on end) But wandering around the web, I have seen some people define shoepegs based on the ARRANGEMENT of the kernels (that a shoepeg corn is one that has no rows). In which case what I have is definitely NOT countable as a shoepeg since if there is one thing it has, it's rows. Clarification?
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Post by DarJones on Oct 2, 2013 20:36:29 GMT -5
The literature describing shoepeg is excellent. Corn produces a reproductive organ on the cob called a cupule. Cupules always form in pairs aligned along the length of the cob. One of the cupules aborts on normal corn with the result that the other cupule makes a kernel. Since the same cupule of each pair forms a kernel, the germ always faces the same direction. This pattern of one aborted cupule always results in kernels in rows on the cob since the cupules are aligned along the length on a fused tassel-like structure.
So what happens if both cupules make a kernel? Then you have shoepeg corn. The germs are formed facing each other. There is not enough room on the cob for all the kernels to fit in rows so they push each other out to the sides to fit. So shoepeg corn is defined by looking at the germ to see if a pair of kernels are facing each other? or if the germ all faces the same direction down the cob.
Also, sweet x popcorn is not much use. It is not sweet and it won't pop. Birds eat it avidly though. When you describe corn as "like little planks stood on end", that is the usual description of gourdseed corn.
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Post by blueadzuki on Oct 3, 2013 8:03:41 GMT -5
K, so what I have is a miniature 36 row pink yellow and white gourdseed. Got it, will change my notes. BTW is a row number like that normal for a gourdseed? I haven't had much experience with those, still less with them as they look on the cob. 36 seems unusually high when compared to most of the ornamental corn I have seen (around here the average is 12-18) and super high for a mini (which usually have closer to the 12 side) But given how slender they are, I supposed gourdseeds could normally have higher.
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Post by DarJones on Oct 3, 2013 11:29:41 GMT -5
The gene that controls row count is kind of like a ratchet, it keeps turning as long as the promoter is available. I have a picture somewhere with an ear of corn that looks like a pineapple. I think it had about 60 rows of kernels. Up to 20 rows of kernels is pretty much normal with most corn at 8 or 10 rows, but you can find ears with a lot more. I don't know if it would breed true, but it is worth a grow out to see.
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Post by blueadzuki on Oct 3, 2013 15:23:21 GMT -5
Well when you get right down to it, I'm not sure ANY of this stuff will breed true. With the sheer diversity of odd stuff I found then, I have to assume that pretty much everything is a mixed gene grabbag. And it's not like things necessarily come true anyway. One year every kernel that went in came from one cob, a mixed color one shaped like a cycad cone. All flat kernels all white (the cob was multicolor, but I only planted the white ones) all floury (again mixed but only floury planted) all large. Of the cobs I got back, one came out chinmarked and all flint, one came out mixed white and blue BOTH came out small seeded, and the kernels looked like buttons (though that part had less to do with genes and more with terrible pollination.) I assume that a lot of the flour/flint cobs I got back then were sibs (or even from one plant) simply becuause they look so much like each other; the same short fat stubby strawberry corn like cobs (they all had that for the first two years I found them, it's only the cobs from after that that had the more normal carrot shaped cobs), same breadloaf kernels with a medium arc. Some are white base peri some red, some chin, but that is really all that differed those cobs; they were clones otherwise (and since a chinmarked plant can throw white and red quite easily, the difference is probably negligable.) I know that all of the dent came from two cobs, the one mentioned and a purple long cobbed one which is sort of marginal dent (24 or so kernels had deep dents, the rest were more "cap corn". those were the only two (well probably see further on) As far as origins, that's really I know. The insect damage on the stuff was so bad that pretty much all of the kernels fell off on the way home, so I basically had to take a big pile of loose kernels and sort them back to their respective cobs as best as I could (that's why I said probably; there are a dozen or so dent kernels that look a little different. Whether they are butt kernels from the gourdseed or random dimpled kernels from elsewhere, I have no way of knowing. But I guess I'd have to leave them out of a "pure cob" growout just to be safe.) All of the mini sweet is sib, since it all came off one cob. I haven't really decided what is worth a growout next spring, but if one of these makes it in and I figure out how to keep the critters off long enough to get cobs back, I'll get back to you on the row count.
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Post by blueadzuki on Oct 5, 2013 17:23:06 GMT -5
The literature describing shoepeg is excellent. Corn produces a reproductive organ on the cob called a cupule. Cupules always form in pairs aligned along the length of the cob. One of the cupules aborts on normal corn with the result that the other cupule makes a kernel. Since the same cupule of each pair forms a kernel, the germ always faces the same direction. This pattern of one aborted cupule always results in kernels in rows on the cob since the cupules are aligned along the length on a fused tassel-like structure. So what happens if both cupules make a kernel? Then you have shoepeg corn. The germs are formed facing each other. There is not enough room on the cob for all the kernels to fit in rows so they push each other out to the sides to fit. So shoepeg corn is defined by looking at the germ to see if a pair of kernels are facing each other? or if the germ all faces the same direction down the cob. . Somewhere in my oddities gallery I actually have at least one example of this in the form of a "Siamese twin kernel" where the two kernels got pushed so close they actually got stuck together (and they have totally different colors so it is two kernels growing together not one that split). The germs aren't facing each other now (when one is facing forward the other is sort of 90 degrees) but they might have been when they were pollinated.
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Post by blueadzuki on Oct 9, 2013 20:52:13 GMT -5
Something I though you might want to see, Joseph. i245.photobucket.com/albums/gg52/Strasheela/rainmini_zps3fefd442.jpgI found this miniature cob at the supermarket today. I caght my eye because of the fact that, for a popcorn cob, it seems to have an unusually high diversity of colors. This includes several that one does not normally find in popcorn; like bright green, turquoise, and orange II (the shade of orange you can get when magenta aleurone is over a yellow base); colors almost unheard of for a popcorn, but pretty common in Glass gem. the colors don't match perfectly, but they may be partially obscured (as you can see the husk and cob are magenta, which means it is possible the pericarp is pale magenta as well which could alter the perceived color of the kernels.) but it is eerily close. What I am trying to get at is, I think this cob may ALREADY be a glass gem colored popcorn.
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Post by Joseph Lofthouse on Oct 9, 2013 23:06:07 GMT -5
blueadzuki: Thanks for the photo. I pulled out some glass gem cobs from last growing season which have not been crossed with my popcorn. I popped a tablespoon of each in the microwave. Some of the kernels split open, but they did not pop properly. If I were to hazard a guess at why, I'd say it's because the kernels are squished flat which creates failure points in the pressure chamber during popping. (Hmmm, wonder who taught me that? ) Many of the cobs had kernels that are too small to pop well. The starch seems a bit off, like it isn't gelatinizing before the shell bursts, or not holding onto the steam while it expands. When I test pop corn I figure that if one tablespoon of kernels pops up to around 250 ml with less than 10 old-maids that it is on the low end of an acceptable popcorn. My best glass gem cobs expand to about 50 ml. Glass Gem has potential as a popcorn, but something about it is not quite right. It's fairly common for a cob to have the superficial appearance of popcorn, but then fail during an actual test pop.
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Post by DarJones on Oct 10, 2013 2:58:32 GMT -5
I suspect it is more than just the "pressure chamber". More than likely, it is the starch and protein structure of the kernel. Popcorn is a very hard very dense form of flint corn. Glass gem seems to have a softer more flexible starch.
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Post by dustdevil on Oct 10, 2013 9:17:53 GMT -5
Nice find Blue! I'd take that Glass Gemish cob you just scored and cross it with a real good white or yellow commercial popcorn.
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Post by blueadzuki on Oct 10, 2013 9:57:43 GMT -5
Maybe at some point down the road. At the moment, it looks so nice I am sparing it from shelling at least until the fall is over, so I can use it in out decorations (interior decorations only, I'm not putting one like this on the door to get all wet and moldy!)
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Post by Joseph Lofthouse on Oct 10, 2013 10:07:11 GMT -5
Fusionpower: Right. I love the collaboration on this site!!! Glass gem has a large area of soft starch near the tip of the kernel. The soft starch might take up as much as half the volume of the kernel. In a good popcorn there is very little soft starch which takes up more like 1/7th of the volume of the kernel. Guess that's another easy to measure thing (bite test) that I should add to my criteria for selecting the best popping cobs. There is no point in test popping if the kernels on the cob have a large area of soft starch.
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Post by blueadzuki on Oct 10, 2013 11:00:46 GMT -5
the tip thing causes another problem, being so far up, you can get quite a lot of cases of it reaching the aluerone pericarp, making a dent of sorts. To me, it's more corroboration that there is some genetic connection between Glass Gem and Earth Tones (which has the same super wide palette of colors) Not having seen the cobs you took the photo of broken up, I can't be sure, but I imagine the pastel one I told you to rogue out is what I call "cap corn"; had starch sides with a big soft tip, covered by a very thin shell of hard. Good for grinding, not for popcorn. Yes, add a bite test, though unless your pool is FULL of dark purple dark red etc. you usually should be able to SEE really bad kernels; if light doesn't pass through, it's probably not good popping corn
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