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Post by Joseph Lofthouse on Sept 8, 2011 17:38:43 GMT -5
I think that tillers are the best thing ever to happen to corn. I like the humus they add to the garden, and I like the extra cobs. Other people in the group really dislike them.
I wouldn't know how to pick pole beans from a support that was 12 feet tall. Do I get a ladder? Or do I have to cut the stalk down in order to harvest the beans?
How does one select for N efficiency?
When I was a kid the corn used to send out lots of roots just above the soil that acted as anchors. I don't see that much in any of the corns that I am currently growing. It seems like it would be a useful trait, even if it is annoying to break up the clumps to prepare the bed for the next crop.
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Post by Joseph Lofthouse on Sept 8, 2011 17:42:55 GMT -5
Joseph, did you happen to get any grain from it? If so, how much? No grain is available. It was used up in a breeding project, and jumbled up together with other purple seeded corn for grow-out. I could pull purple seeds out of the bulk seed, but that's all I could say about them: Purple seeds.
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Post by steev on Sept 8, 2011 18:58:49 GMT -5
Both the corns I'm growing this year have two sets of brace roots; that and the wind are why I hill them up with compost, which I'm going to want there after I pull the stalks, to till in.
I'm figuring out a system where, once I get a larger tiller with a single-share plow, I can hill up my corn with that, having planted in the previous furrows, so that the plot gets worked deeper each season.
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Post by Deleted on Sept 8, 2011 22:47:39 GMT -5
Thanks, Johno. I can't say for sure, but I'd wager that splitting the productivity between 2 thin ears, rather than one fat one would give the same yield but a week earlier. The ears would also be lighter, so their necks would be less likely to snap from the weight. Joseph, I may be completely wrong here, but as I understand it tropical maize is a good bit more adept at taking up N from the soil, so crossing it with temperate varieties and then selecting the most efficient offspring should produce a somewhat more efficient variety. Some parts of the tropics are lacking in soil nitrogen due to rain leaching and ridiculously fast nutrient cycling, so corn grown there tends to be better at gathering N before something else grabs it. Once moved to richer soils, they can make growth with less than local strains that have grown accustomed to reasonable fertility. nitrogenes.cropsci.illinois.edu/resources/Tropical%20Maize.pdfThe second part of the article mentions tropical corn needing less N fertilizer, but it may not be the case when grown for grain. I don't know. As for the height, I want the plants to be tall so that the ear(s) would be up high enough on the stalk for ferilization before the bean vines reach them and block the pollen. That happened on our 8 foot corn last year, and we got pitiful ear fill. I still haven't found out how to best harvest the dry pods from the taller corns, so I'll have to work on that.
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Post by keen101 (Biolumo / Andrew B.) on Sept 8, 2011 22:57:14 GMT -5
Interesting idea about the think cob idea in relation to drying time. I did add some "pencil cob" variety to my mix last fall. If it is a trait that survives in my population, and turns out to be useful, then i will keep it. I probably wouldn't select against it, unless it turned out to have some sort of trait i did not like. The only trait I've been particularly trying to weed out is a "curling cob" trait. It's when a few cobs curl so badly that their husk splits. It's annoying.
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Post by DarJones on Sept 9, 2011 1:13:04 GMT -5
Somewhere on Dave Christiansen's Painted Mountain site there is a short sentence about selecting thin cobs because they dry down faster.
Several years ago I made a cross of my drought tolerant variant of Hickory King with Pencil Cob. It made a very productive hybrid, roughly twice as productive as either parent. I still have a handful of seed but did not pursue the cross because the pencil cob trait reduces production in further generations. If I were trying it again, I would find a corn variety that makes very long cobs. You might be able to concentrate the long cob with the thin cob trait which should maintain production.
DarJones
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Post by Deleted on Sept 9, 2011 9:34:56 GMT -5
fusionpower, Yeah, the pencil cob trait can be a pain sometimes. I ran into the productivity issue when comparing the total number of kernels on a 12 row Bloody Butcher ear with a fat 22 row one out of the same patch. Hopefully, I can remedy that issue in my composite by breeding Longfellow genes (12 inch ears, I believe) with 12-row, thinner cob types, then selecting for double ears. By the way, you mentioned your H. King / Pencil cob cross having a good deal of hybrid vigor. I'm wondering how long the heterosis would last before tapering off if one were to cross several very different races. I've heard the reason Cornbelt dents are so relatively productive is the hybrid vigor still being expressed from the cross between the Northern flint and Southern dent races from 200 years ago.
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Post by Joseph Lofthouse on Sept 13, 2011 23:18:11 GMT -5
Here is a cob that kept it's color after cooking: It's a hybrid between Astronomy Domine and Sugary Enhanced... Too bad I picked the whole cob before cooking a sample:
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