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Post by raymondo on Aug 24, 2011 17:23:19 GMT -5
I've mentioned before somewhere that I want develop a flour corn suited to me and my garden. Inspired by some of the multiple corn projects described here I'm wondering whether I would also be able to develop a sweet corn.
I have a few questions in that regard.
1. Do you think a house between two blocks of corn would be sufficient to have reasonable success at keeping the sweet and flour corns separate? One block would be on the southern side and one on the northern side and our winds tend to be from either the southeast or the west.
2. In case there is some mixing, is it the case that all sweets have wrinkled kernels and all flours not? If this were so it would be possible to separate the kernels, painstaking but possible.
3. I have access to Su and Sh2 sweet corns. Is there any particular reason to choose one over the other?
I have to confess that I have only ever attempted to grow corn once in my life and that was an unmitigated disaster.
Any help for an ignorant corn grower would be much appreciated.
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Post by DarJones on Aug 24, 2011 17:36:36 GMT -5
1. As distance and barriers increase, crosspollination decreases. At 100 ft, less than 1 in 1000 kernels will be crossed. IMO, this is still too much to allow if you are doing serious breeding work. You would plant the sweet corn downwind from the flour corn. That way the crossed seed could be visually identified.
2. You can separate crossed seed in the sweet corn patch but not vice versa. The su, sh2, and se genes are all recessive. This means a flour corn can be pollinated by sweet corn but cannot be visually identified unless another trait permits it. For example, you could grow a white flour corn and a yellow sweet corn. Then you could visually identify the crossed seed in the sweet corn because they would not be wrinkled and the crosses in the flour corn because they would be yellow.
3. I suggest avoiding sh2 but only because it has much more genetic drag associated with the genetics.
DarJones
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Post by canadamike on Aug 24, 2011 18:17:40 GMT -5
Ray: can we ship corn to Australia? I think I have what you need to start selecting: a very early and nevertheless productive corn with lots of protein. It makes a fantastic flour. Since it is a short season and is cold tolerant, and reacts well to drought, it should do good for you... it is about 70 days to 50% tasselling.
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Post by raymondo on Aug 24, 2011 21:08:45 GMT -5
Thanks fusion. Very useful pointers. What do you mean by genetic drag?
Michel, sadly, we cannot import corn seeds except at very great expense, and even then only from New Zealand or the state of Idaho in the US. You could try sending some but most packages now are x-rayed and any with seeds sent on to our quarantine department. It's very rare that a seed packet gets through without inspection.
I will make do with what's available here. We have a number of flour types that I can work with. I'll just mix them up, let them cross, and start from there. It's the flour corn I'm most interested in so will probably start that project this coming season. I have a friend who loves growing sweet corn so I might see if I can persuade him to grow a mix I create and let them cross at will. He can eat/sell most of it.
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Post by canadamike on Aug 24, 2011 21:15:08 GMT -5
I think you will receive chocolate covered seeds soon ;D ;D ;D Please send me your adress, I have a new puter, the other one died, and I am too computer illiterate to save stuff elsewhere, or too idiot, whatever suits you....
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Post by DarJones on Aug 24, 2011 21:23:04 GMT -5
lol at Mike. Next thing you know he will be blooming. Genetic drag is just a term that is used to describe a genetic trait that results in unwanted side effects. For sh2 corn, the side effects include weak germination and watery oversweet kernels. In tomatoes, crossing with wild species to incorporate disease tolerance often brings in undesired traits such as weak spindly stems. DarJones
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Post by canadamike on Aug 24, 2011 22:19:18 GMT -5
lol at Mike. Next thing you know he will be blooming. DarJones But I am blooming my friend, I truely am People would be amazed at the tricks I have used to send stuff...the best part is that that stuff was legal, but there is sooo much confusion for the workers at the borders..they can delay things until it is too late, it happened to me lots of time. I send a lot of candies and ''craft'' material... but just to speed things up..
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Post by Joseph Lofthouse on Aug 25, 2011 1:33:10 GMT -5
Hmmm. Teddy bears are often stuffed with beans or corn. And who knows what a hacky-sack gets stuffed with....
And X-ray operators are notorious for not paying attention to what is zooming past them.
And if things get sent by strangers that you didn't order from and have no knowledge about you can't be held liable....
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Post by Darth Slater on Aug 25, 2011 8:44:21 GMT -5
lol at Mike. Next thing you know he will be blooming. DarJones But I am blooming my friend, I truely am People would be amazed at the tricks I have used to send stuff...the best part is that that stuff was legal, but there is sooo much confusion for the workers at the borders..they can delay things until it is too late, it happened to me lots of time. I send a lot of candies and ''craft'' material... but just to speed things up.. Heres a good way, take elmers glue and glue seeds around any figure on a card and color them with majic marker, it looks like part of the card theme.
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Post by 12540dumont on Aug 25, 2011 17:02:26 GMT -5
Do not try to send chocolate to Italy or Belgium.... A few years ago we made homemade paper into which we placed tomato seeds. The Paper was made into cards and we shipped tomato seeds willy nilly all over the world. Corn and beans are the toughest because they are fat and heavy. A few years ago we made a bean bag game. One piece of cloth like a tic-tac-toe board. (Felt and felt pens). Bean bags stuffed with real beans or corn seeds. Packed in a box with foam, so that it didn't rattle. Shipped: Gift/Game One of the few things I every got to NZ...who are parcel nazi's. Everytime I send something to Cortona I worry about whether it will get there. You can't send used bedding to Oz, so, don't slip the chocolate in a pillowcase! pe.usps.com/text/imm/immctry.htm
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Post by keen101 (Biolumo / Andrew B.) on Aug 25, 2011 17:21:29 GMT -5
I like the bean bag idea. it sounds like it would work well. I suspect Ray is going to start getting lots of "beanbags" from Canada very soon. haha
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Post by raymondo on Aug 26, 2011 5:15:28 GMT -5
I suspect Ray is going to start getting lots of "beanbags" from Canada very soon. haha Yikes! Thanks for the link dustdevil. A very informative article.
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Post by mnjrutherford on Aug 28, 2011 13:51:19 GMT -5
LOL Your in a heap o'trouble now Ray!
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Post by raymondo on Aug 29, 2011 5:18:59 GMT -5
I got nervous when Joseph mentioned hacky-sacks, not knowing what or who a hacky-sack is! I used trusty old Google to enlighten myself on that one. Not really sure whether I'm more or less nervous.
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