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Post by keen101 (Biolumo / Andrew B.) on Dec 22, 2010 12:13:11 GMT -5
I'm also at about 5,000 feet in the foothills here. It's a similar climate as joseph, and i'm only a state away from him too. Colorado is no where near sea level. Ironically we haven't gotten any snow this winter. I predict we get it all in early april and may. One year we had snow on the fourth of july. Go figure.
In the past we used to plant our corn in mid may like all the recommendations say. But, last year i planted on april 1st, and had the best crop of corn i've ever had. It did snow on them about a half a foot, two weeks later when they had already sprouted and were about 4 inches tall. Some died almost immediately, but most survived fine. Even the ones that were halfway between dead recovered well. I hope to continue this "tradition", and eventually get corn that can survive under two feet of snow and not die at all.
Also i think by having an earlier crop of corn, there were less squirrels that ate my corn, as they seemed to be thrown off by the timing, and had plenty of other things to eat when the earliest corn was ready. This changed as the end of the season neared.
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Post by flowerpower on Dec 23, 2010 7:15:51 GMT -5
It's sorta interesting now that I'm reading it... corn isn't supposed to be a "sensitive" crop like say, chia. Yet you guys aren't all that much further north of me and you're just starting to plant when our planting season is nearly done? I can't plant until the snow melts and the ground is not frozen. This year we had hard frosts until June 15 and snow into late May. Most commercial corn is grown in the valleys around here. So when I see the farmers plowing under the winter rye, I start seeds.
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Post by DarJones on Dec 24, 2010 1:47:58 GMT -5
Joseph, May I request that you measure the seedcoat thickness on several of your selected kernels? I'd like to establish a baseline of how accurate the water absorption test is at identifying se+ kernels.
DarJones
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Post by Joseph Lofthouse on Dec 24, 2010 11:22:18 GMT -5
Yes. I'm glad to do that. My calipers are currently unavailable. (Family troubles.) I'll see if I can borrow a set.
By the tooth test they are thin. (I forgot to mention it before, but part of my selection criteria is to taste some kernels as I go along to calibrate the selection process to make sure that the kernels in addition to being sweet also have a thin pericarp.)
There is a descendant of Shawnee fire that seems different. It has more of a pudding inside, and it seems like the pericarp may be thicker. But I'll get some calipers and test it right.
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Post by DarJones on Dec 29, 2010 18:11:23 GMT -5
I received a package of corn seed today from Joseph that has some carefully chosen se+ seed. Now I get to plan how and when to plant it.
DarJones
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Post by Joseph Lofthouse on Jan 11, 2011 12:22:41 GMT -5
Germination rate of the re-dehydrated seeds was around 30%, some varieties as low as 5%! I intend to run another set of tests. It's looking like selection is best done just before planting. (Although if I did this every year I might eventually select for corn with great germination after being re-dehydrated.)
DarJones: It looks like the ~100% se+ seed I sent you has around a 30% germination rate...
That may be a good sign.... It's acting like typical se+ sweet corn. I often get 0% germination of se+ when I plant it in my garden too early in the spring.
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Post by DarJones on Jan 11, 2011 13:34:38 GMT -5
I suspected there would be germination problems. I have plenty of your seed so will do the soak treatment and then plant when spring finally gets here.
DarJones
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Post by Alan on Jan 17, 2011 19:47:18 GMT -5
Well, its a small sacrifice to make when you consider in a few generations you may no longer need to pre-soak the seed to determine the genetic makeup.
Best of luck with it my friend!
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Post by Joseph Lofthouse on Aug 31, 2011 0:20:05 GMT -5
The cob in the photo was shucked 24 hours before the photo was taken, and left attached to the plant. It grew from an F1 cross: [Astronomy Domine X se+]. The homozygous se+ kernels are quickly loosing water and starting to shrink with fine wrinkles. I have circled some of them on the photo. I could mark those with a sharpie or paint pen for harvest later when the cob has fully dried. That would be one more identification test to do along with the soak test before planting.
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Post by DarJones on Aug 31, 2011 13:32:52 GMT -5
Ain't pleiotropy a wonderful thing. Increased sweetness, thinner seedcoat, faster drydown. All from one gene.
pleiotropy [plahy-o-truh-pee] plei·ot·ro·py [plahy-o-truh-pee] Show IPA noun Genetics . the phenomenon of one gene being responsible for or affecting more than one phenotypic characteristic.
DarJones
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Post by Joseph Lofthouse on Mar 7, 2012 20:40:43 GMT -5
I finally got around to processing the F2 seeds from homozygous sugary enhanced corn crossed with either open pollinated sweet corns or with Indian corns.
There is not enough seed from the Indian corns for sharing, (except with closely associated collaborators) but there is an abundance of the sweet corn crosses for sharing.
I have two lineages available. Both of them are expected to contain more than 25% homozygous se+ kernels, more than 50% of kernels with one se gene, and less than 25% kernels without the se gene.
Homegrown Goodness' Astronomy Domine crossed with 65, 75, and 85 day sugary enhanced sweet corn.
Long Island Seed Project's Ashworth su/se crossed with 65 day homozygous sugary enhanced sweet corn. [All yellow with a hint of pink pericarp on some cobs.] This is the earliest sweet corn that I have ever grown. I'd call it a 60 day corn if my garden was warmer. (GDD10C = 745) I only saved seed from the butt end of the cob attempting to push it even earlier.
I have lots to share, so send me a personal message is you'd like some. Tell me about how many kernels you can use. And don't be shy... A few of you had asked for Paradise sweet corn, and I didn't have enough to share. This would be the next best thing.
My intention for this corn in the coming growing season is to grow it out, and self a bunch of plants, and then test multiple individual kernels per cob to figure out the genetics... I hope to get out of it two strains of open pollinated homozygous sugary enhanced sweet corn. One extremely early, and the other a main season corn (75 days).
Also with the Ashworth to recover the essence of it as a plain old su sweet corn. Then in future years I can use it to make an Ashworth su/se hybrid. The hybrid aught to germinate reliably in my garden in very early spring, and still give people the extra sugar that is popular these days. Cause what's the point of growing a super early se sweet corn if I can't plant it into cold soil?
I used the sugar water density method for separating the Indian flour and flint corns from the sweet corns. It worked very well. After separation, I rinsed them under running water in a colander, and then towel dried, and then tossed them in the dehydrator at 85F overnight.
I did a similar separation on the sweet corns that I am keeping for myself (not the sharing portion). Keeping the densest 1/4 of the kernels for planting. [I'll plant a sample of the floaters too, just to verify the procedure.]
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Post by Joseph Lofthouse on Mar 9, 2012 1:24:21 GMT -5
Today I tasted the corns that I threshed and sorted yesterday.
The variety with the most sugar still in the kernels was the cross between Earthtones Dent and sugary enhanced sweet corns. I'm running a soak test on it, and a germination test. I'm interested in knowing if kernels with that much sugar in them will actually germinate.
I don't have enough seed to work with, nor the right equipment for highly accurate measurements, but the density of the F2 AD X se+ seed that sank during the float test was about 1.1 g/ml. The sugar water solution was not quite saturated, I had to add a small amount of water until about 1/4 of the kernels sank, and 3/4 floated. [After the fact measurements show that 22% sank.]
The strategy that I settled on for the flour/flint/dent crosses was to process lots of corn crudely in a somewhat diluted solution, and then take the sinkers, and separate them a second time using a more concentrated solution.
For those of you that are new to the group, I am using this sorting strategy because I am working under the theory that sugary enhanced kernels are denser than plain old sweet corn, and denser than kernels with only one se gene. It works exceedingly easy for separating sweet kernels in general from flour, flint, or dent kernels.
Too bad I wasted the sugar water rather than fermenting it.
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Post by Joseph Lofthouse on Mar 18, 2012 19:01:52 GMT -5
Joseph, May I request that you measure the seedcoat thickness on several of your selected kernels? I'd like to establish a baseline of how accurate the water absorption test is at identifying se+ kernels. Must be the longest time ever to respond to a post... Ha! I've thought about you frequently. Here is a graph of pericarp thickness in one of my lines... It is F2 of [Long Island Seed Project's Ashworth su/se X Precocious se+]. There was a small amount of se in the Ashworth before I made the cross, so don't expect it to follow strict F2 Mendelian segregation. (I estimate that the population is 33% se+). Thickness was measured opposite the tip where the root emerges. With the cold temperatures in the house, (we're having a blizzard) and different genetics... This variety for this soak test took ~48 hours to fully plump up. A different variety takes closer to ~12 hours. It looks to me like the pericarp thickness associated with the se gene is a penetrant trait. Meaning that it might be possible with a bit longer soaking time to further separate the su kernels from the su/se kernels. I separated the kernels into two bins before measuring pericarp thickness with calipers: Fully plumped -- everything else. The dividing line in the data is at .010 inch which had one kernel in each bin.
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baby daddy
gardener
Laugh when you can, Apoligize when you should, Let go of the things you can't change.
Posts: 132
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Post by baby daddy on May 17, 2012 15:28:20 GMT -5
Nice to have smart people here like Joseph and Dar, some of the posts I have to read a couple of times but it is sinking in. Thanks for sharing.
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Post by Joseph Lofthouse on May 31, 2012 14:00:40 GMT -5
In preparation for planting today, I did the soak test on my sugary enhanced breeding program F2 seed. The density separation technique did a very good job of separating presumably se+ seed from su or su/se seed. With ETD the density separation was about 99% effective at selecting for presumably se+ seed. (Tender pericarp and sweet tasting endosperm.) In lines with more genetic diversity to start with the separation efficiency varied from 80% to 95%.
I was very pleased with: Earth-tones Dent, and Pink Hopi. The re-hydrated kernels were tender and tasted great. Blue Hopi was nice and provided lots of seed so if they germinate it will be well represented in the planting.
I didn't like the mixed Flint/Flour seed, because many of them had a hard kernel tip that gave them a gritty texture.
Frosty also provided some presumably se+ seed. It looks like they are descended from Pink Hopi and from a cob with transposon striping. The Pink Hopi crosses have made a significant contribution to the Frosty gene-pool since they survived so well during the initial screening.
Gotta go on a search and rescue for the Cherokee Squaw seed. I'm planting it in a separate patch. Also planting the cherry flavored corn in a separate patch.
K. I'm off to plant now.
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