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Post by Joseph Lofthouse on Dec 12, 2011 18:56:50 GMT -5
Yesterday I processed the cobs from my frost-tolerant cold-hardy landrace. Harvest from 42 plants was about 3/4 bushel. About 1/5 of the cobs were sweet corn, about 1/5 were flints/flours, and most of the rest were segregating crosses between Indian corn and sugary enhanced sweet corn. There were a few plants that I didn't collect seed from. (A couple of Painted Mountain cobs got eaten by animals, and an Oaxacan pyramid corn didn't produce seeds.) It was interesting to observe that more than half of the segregating crosses were from Hopi Pink. This far exceeds the ratio of Hopi Pink seed that was planted. I separated the seed into four lots: - Sweet corn: These were sweet when planted. I also put the segregating sweet corn kernlels into this lot, perhaps about 15% of total sweet corn seeds.
- Flint/Flour corns with a recessive sweet gene: There is a heck of a lot of Hopi Pink in this lot. The concentration of the se gene in this lot is about 50%.
- Flint/Flour: More than half are darkly colored due to pericarp pigment.
- Hard flint semi-popcorn: There were only 3 plants of this type.
A few weeks ago I planted seeds from the sweet corn in mid-November, just before snow cover arrived. The same day, in a separate row, I planted the other types of seeds. I'm looking for winter-hardiness, frost-tolerance, cool-soil-emergence, and/or other traits that might be useful in cold climates. It is my intention to plant more of this seed as soon as the snow melts in the spring: Perhaps the last week of March, approximately 7 weeks earlier than usual. If I get a mid-winter thaw, I'll plant some then. My tube seeder sure is nice for planting in mid-winter. I intend to use this seed in my sugary enhanced sweet corn breeding project and to incorporate the hard flints into my popcorn landrace. Seed is available for swap.
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Post by spacecase0 on Dec 12, 2011 21:23:53 GMT -5
is the hopi pink the one that you got from a place that place that does not have good separation of types ?
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Post by Joseph Lofthouse on Dec 12, 2011 21:29:18 GMT -5
is the hopi pink the one that you got from that place that does not have good separation of types ? Yes.
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Post by Joseph Lofthouse on Jan 1, 2012 16:31:26 GMT -5
Today, January 1st 2012, I planted two rows of corn as part of my project to develop a more frost tolerant and/or cold hardy and/or perennial and/or winter corn.
I planted a row of sweet corn, and a row of flint/flour/pop corn. They are the offspring of last year's corn that was planted 10 weeks before our average last frost date.
The ground was frozen, so I was only able to get them about 1/2 inch into the soil, but I figure that planted is planted.
And, after the fact, I think it is delightful to have made the first planting of the new year!
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Post by spacecase0 on Jan 1, 2012 22:43:21 GMT -5
that is very early... how cold will it get by spring ?
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Post by Joseph Lofthouse on Jan 1, 2012 23:38:41 GMT -5
that is very early... how cold will it get by spring ? -20 F is common here. We usually have several feet of snow on the ground when temperatures are that low, so no telling what the temperature of the seeds will be. The earliest planting that survived last winter was at the end of March. I'm intending to plant more during the winter. Our snow cover typically melts around the last week of March. I hope to plant some then. If we have a mid-winter thaw i'll try to stick in a couple more rows.
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Post by 12540dumont on Jan 2, 2012 19:27:47 GMT -5
Joseph, I'm following this with interest. I'm fooling around with peas for the same reason. Tomorrow I'm going to set out peas and then February and then March.
We have had no rain, yesterday it was 65. I actually found a couple of corn sprouts near the compost pile. The soil temperature is still pretty cold. Today it's been windy and in the 40's.
Good luck with this, please keep letting us know how it's going. Unless of course you are pulling our legs, so typical on the corn pages, and stayed in bed with a Russian novella (like War & Peace) and a glass of wine.
Happy New Year my friend.
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Post by oxbowfarm on Jan 3, 2012 7:32:57 GMT -5
There must be some ability for corn to survive like this, even conventional cornbelt dent. It would be hard to explain all the volunteer corn you see in soybeans otherwise. Unless its just from planters not getting cleaned?
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Post by Joseph Lofthouse on Jan 30, 2012 11:33:11 GMT -5
There must be some ability for corn to survive like this, even conventional cornbelt dent. It would be hard to explain all the volunteer corn you see in soybeans otherwise. Unless its just from planters not getting cleaned? Another mechanism that I have noticed is that a corn cob overwinters above ground either in a plowed field, or on a broken down stalk, and the seed gets buried during seed-bed preparation in the spring.
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Post by 12540dumont on Feb 12, 2012 13:21:05 GMT -5
Joseph, The soil temp here is at 49 degrees.
I have a lovely selection of your corns. Should I attempt to plant a variety? The weather has been consistently between 60-40. A few days in the 70's and a few nights in the high 30's.
I normally plant corn on April 14. The official last frost date, and about the time our soil hits 65.
Your packages of corn that you sent look like fine jewels, sparkling and colorful. More valuable than rubies or emeralds, even kings don't have jewels as good as these.
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Post by Joseph Lofthouse on Feb 12, 2012 14:59:49 GMT -5
Holly: Thanks for the kind words. Have the corn sprouts near the compost pile survived?
I normally plant su corn (Astronomy Domine) about May 5th, which is 3 weeks before our average last frost date.
I normally don't plant sugary enhanced sweet corn until about a week after our average last frost.
I can plant su/se hybrids the same time as AD. I didn't create any of those last year though... Boo Hoo.
If I sent you a sample of "Frosted Sweet Corn"... last year I planted it 10 weeks before our average last frost date, which was the day after our winter snow-cover melted. I have plenty of seed to share if you want to try a sacrificial planting.
We are having a bit of a thaw so I checked the garden to see if I could plant a patch of Frosted. There was still snow over much of the garden, and where there wasn't snow the ground was frozen. So not yet.
One of my neighbors used to plant corn during the February thaw. About every third year it would survive, and he'd have the earliest corn in the valley. And if it didn't survive, there was still plenty of time to replant.
I plant my first crop of peas the day after the snow melts.
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Post by nathan125 on Feb 12, 2012 15:59:06 GMT -5
I bought too many corn varieties, I think i will try sacrificial corn planting. I certainly don;t want anything to cross with the AD that i am waiting for from joeseph, i'll have to time my plantings very well so no cross pollination will occur...
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Post by 12540dumont on Feb 12, 2012 17:32:10 GMT -5
Welcome to the corn nightmare. 90 day corn becomes 70 day corn. 70 day corn becomes 90 day corn and I have a nervous breakdown. Today I found a corn coming up in the potato patch. It is probably a flint corn, as there were no unpicked sweet corns. Okay, so I'll scratch some soil (it's too wet to till) and plant some o that St. Joe's Frosty. Attachments:
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Post by blueadzuki on Feb 12, 2012 19:37:00 GMT -5
I am seriosly contemplating planting some of my Andean corn (maybe half to 3/4 of it) in a week or two and hoping we get no more severe snowstorms. The way I see it, that's probably the only way I can get this cold loving stuff (note I said cold, not freezing) to get the max out of the spring and have a chance of it getting to the cobs starting (or at least to setting pollen) before the heat of the summer comes on and it goes into total stasis till fall.
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Post by oxbowfarm on Feb 13, 2012 5:17:22 GMT -5
Low tunnels or row cover? You'd be amazed at what might survive under them. Lots of hyper-competitive gardeners do that with sweetcorn.
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