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Post by raymondo on Oct 2, 2011 18:39:57 GMT -5
Regardless of what might or might not be possible in terms of corn seed imports, I'd appreciate some advice as to how to proceed assuming the only thing you have to work with is one packet of Bodacious and a selection of flint, flour, sh2 and su corns to match it with.
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Post by DarJones on Oct 2, 2011 19:01:08 GMT -5
Use the Bodacious as the pollen parent crossing with a flint and with Golden Bantam. Save seed from the Bodacious so you can use it another year as a known se+ parent.
Save seed of the Golden Bantam and the Flint variety separately. The Golden Bantam will segregate at the F2 with 1/4 of the kernels producing se+.
Do the first selection of the flint cross at the F2 by saving only the shriveled sweek kernels. These will be 1/4 se+. Then select again at the F3 by picking only the pure se+ stalks.
From those two starts you could have two very good chances at an OP selection that is se+ within 4 years. I plan on using inbreeding to do my selection. I am after much better seed purity than 97%. My seed is F2 this year and I will be growing and selecting from F3 plants next year.
DarJones
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Post by Joseph Lofthouse on Oct 2, 2011 19:45:16 GMT -5
Use the Bodacious as the pollen parent crossing with a flint and with Golden Bantam. Save seed from the Bodacious so you can use it another year as a known se+ parent. I agree. Do the first selection of the flint cross at the F2 by saving only the shriveled sweet kernels. These will be 1/4 se+. Then select again at the F3 by picking only the pure se+ stalks. From those two starts you could have two very good chances at an OP selection that is se+ within 4 years. I plan on using inbreeding to do my selection. I am after much better seed purity than 97%. My seed is F2 this year and I will be growing and selecting from F3 plants next year. I recommend attempting to select individual se+ kernels from among the sweet kernels produced by the F2 generation. My success rate this year at identifying homozygous kernels in the F2 was 97%. Then self-pollination could be used in the F3 generation to verify the selections. By attempting selection of individual se+ kernels in the F2, I have reduced my work very significantly.... Based on this years results, 3 plants in 100 were not homozygous, where 75 out of 100 plants would have been non-homozygous if I had just randomly planted the wrinkly F2 seeds. If I had used an inbreeding step this summer, I would have a 100% se+ sweet corn today. As it is, I have to weed out those 3% of non-conforming kernels: Inbreeding is a great way to do that. I expect that I'll be bagging next summer.
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Post by raymondo on Oct 3, 2011 0:32:48 GMT -5
Thank you Dar and Joseph. That will help my friend enormously.
This may be a dumb question but how do you know for sure and certain when you have se+?
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Post by 12540dumont on Oct 3, 2011 1:03:35 GMT -5
So when you set up the field did you plant a row of Bodacious (A), Flint (B), Golden Bantam (C).
A, B, A, C, A
Or?
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Post by DarJones on Oct 3, 2011 2:55:58 GMT -5
mix the golden bantam freely with the flint corn, plant them in the same row, and when they start to tassel, you will pull the tassels. Plant a row of the bodacious on one side. Wait a week and plant another row of Bodacious on the other side. That way you ensure pollen overlap. If you don't have enough Bodacious seed, wait a week and plant another row of the GB & F on the other side of the single row of Bodacious. Either way, you will get pollen overlap and should get some seed set. Bodacious has a very short pollen availability window of 7 days so you have to have receptive silks at the right time. Keep it as simple as possible.
DarJones
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Post by Joseph Lofthouse on Oct 3, 2011 8:57:58 GMT -5
This may be a dumb question but how do you know for sure and certain when you have se+? I can't know for sure, because I don't have a genetics lab, and I can't directly measure genetics.... But I can select for corn that conforms to the se+ standard, and I'll let the plants work out how they are going to get there. My testing goes something like this: Taste the cob at the fresh eating stage. If it has tough skin it is not se+. Taste the cob weeks later... If it previously had tender skin and is still sweet in spite of being so old then it is acting like sugary enhanced sweet corn. Dry the corn. Soak in water for ~20 hours. If all of the kernels absorb moisture readily and get plump and firm the cob is acting like a homozygous se cob. If some kernels (1/2 or 1/4) plump up and some remain wrinkly it's acting like a segregating hybrid. I only plant quickly plumping kernels. For my fields I wanted to harvest a market crop at the same time I did the pollination so I set them up this way. (If I were doing only a crossing block I'd have used a single row of pollen donors.) A, B, C = 65, 75, and 85 day se+ corn... Other letters represent other corns. Each line represents one row ABCABCABCABCABC ABCABCABCABCABC ABCABCABCABCABC ddddddddddddddd eeeeeeeeeeeeeee fffffffffffffffffffffffffffff gggggggggggggggg wait until previous patch is at 3-4 leaf stage and then plant ABCABCABCABCABC ABCABCABCABCABC ABCABCABCABCABC hhhhhhhhhhhhhhh iiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii kkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkk ooooooooooooooo finish off after a while with another market patch ABCABCABCABCABC ABCABCABCABCABC ABCABCABCABCABC
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Post by 12540dumont on Oct 3, 2011 11:51:40 GMT -5
Thanks, that is exactly what I needed. Holly
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Post by 12540dumont on Oct 5, 2011 19:32:20 GMT -5
Dar, Is the gene for "early" dominant in corn?
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Post by DarJones on Oct 5, 2011 19:38:25 GMT -5
It is neither dominant nor recessive. The phytochrome moderation effects are "penetrant" meaning that if you cross a long season variety with a short season variety, the result will be somewhere between the two parent values. It will lean toward the longer season parent. So if you cross a 110 day corn with a 140 day corn, you would be likely to get a 130 day corn or something in that range. Also, the phytochrome system is affected by many genes, therefore not a simple on or off situation.
DarJones
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