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Post by Joseph Lofthouse on Jul 5, 2013 17:21:44 GMT -5
It seems that Joseph and Blue can identify the origin of colors without any surgery even on a simple picture. How do you do that ? Lots and lots of looking at genetically diverse cobs of corn. I generally rationalize that if every kernel on the cob has the same tint to it, then that is due to pericarp color... If there are pure white kernels on a cob, then the pericarp is colorless. I tripped over the glass gem cob, I think due to every kernel having some shade of blue in that photo. And since people keep sending me Oaxacan Green, and I since I refuse to plant it because of the misleading name, then I have only myself to blame for flubbing on that one. Some of my favorite corns are those in which the pericarp is colored only on the sides of the kernel, and not on the top. It's a combination that is very pleasing to me. An example is the third cob from the right on the top row:
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Post by Andre on Jul 6, 2013 11:58:31 GMT -5
What do you mean by "misleading name" ?
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Post by Joseph Lofthouse on Jul 6, 2013 19:21:41 GMT -5
What do you mean by "misleading name" ? Oaxacan green is marketed as: "Grown for centuries by the Zapotec Indians in Oaxaca, Mexico..." which is as tropical as it gets as a location for growing corn. But it is marketed to people living in temperate climates as a 75 to 100 day corn, which is typical of temperate corns. I can't find any mention of day-length sensitivity, which I'd expect for corns from Oaxaca. Structurally the starch type, and kernel shape are typical of a Southern Dent, and not like the more more airy and rounded kernels of corn from Southern Mexico. Oaxacan green grows without the bracer roots which are so typical of southern corns, and older corns in general. So I think of it as a northern temperate corn of recent origin, and not as a southern tropical corn from antiquity... I have no authoritative source for any of these speculations, just what I can notice with my own eyes. It seems to me that the marketing doesn't match up with the traits of the corn. So I think that if the Zapotecs really do make green corn tortillas, that either they use a genetically different corn, or they are using a Northern corn that was relatively recently re-introduced into southern Mexico. It reminds me of "Black Aztec" sweet corn, which is clearly a North American temperate corn that has nothing to do with the South American population of corn. There is nothing Aztec about it.
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Post by Deleted on Jul 6, 2013 20:35:05 GMT -5
Joseph, There is a breed of corn from Southern Mexico called "Zapalote Chico" that is daylength neutral, likely due to a deletion mutation at one of the photoperiod sensitivity loci. Both "Oaxacan Green" and Sandhill's "Guadalajara All-Purpose" are very likely varieties of that race. Following is a GRIN accession of another collection. Note the first sentence in the description.: www.ars-grin.gov/cgi-bin/npgs/acc/display.pl?1177463Zapalote Chico is typically white-grained and a semi-flint or dent, sometimes with more floury seeds. As far as color goes, there are 2 other early sympatric Mexican races that could easily have contributed the endosperm and aleurone colors ("Nal-Tel" and "Negro De Tierra Caliente", respectively). As I understand it, both the earliest Nal-Tel derivatives (it's a HIGHLY variable complex) and Zapalote Chico lack bracer roots, as do many other Latin American breeds, with Andean and Mexican mountain corns being the worst. This is just off the top of my head, though, so anybody feel free to correct me if you find out otherwise. In the case of "Black Mexican" and "Black Aztec", it was intentional false advertising by a mid-1800's seedsman trying to add novelty value to a long-established Iroquois sweet corn. Try growing it in Central Mexico, and see how "Aztec" it is.
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Post by blueadzuki on Jul 6, 2013 21:06:53 GMT -5
In the case of "Black Mexican" and "Black Aztec", it was intentional false advertising by a mid-1800's seedsman trying to add novelty value to a long-established Iroquois sweet corn. Try growing it in Central Mexico, and see how "Aztec" it is. They did that a lot and still do. I have a lot of doubt that either of the two so called "Anasazi" corns (the sweetcorn offered by sand hill and the flour one that used to be offered by seeds of change) actually has much of anything to do with the Anasazi (for one the flour again looks far more like a eastern to Midwestern flour corn than a southwestern one (the kernels are a bit too square) Heck I'm a little dubious about the Anasazi bean or at least the old saw about it being dug up on a dig (besides the fact that bean seeds do not normally last longer than about 50 years even under ideal conditions not 1,500, there is the fact that the New Mexico Cave bean has almost the exact same origin story, so unless New Mexico cave is a selection of Anasazi (it could be, as far as I can see the main difference between the two is seed color) or finding little sealed pots of unusually long viable beans is a common occurrence on digs at least one is recycling the story of the other. Ditto any veggie with the King Tut name and a byline of being taken out of a sealed Egyptian tomb (and unsealed one maybe, the Egyptian people were and are known to use the corridors of already emptied tombs as storehouses) be it either of the King Tut peas (the one that actually is a pea and the one that is a grasspea) or, God help me, the tomato.
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Post by Joseph Lofthouse on Jul 6, 2013 23:01:20 GMT -5
bjargakarlinn: thanks.
Since the Hopi are probably descended from the Anasazi, I'd expect that Anasazi corn and Hopi corn would be nearly synonymous, and share traits of the Mexican Highland race. The "Anasazi sweet corn" that I grew didn't bear much resemblance to the highly-tillered and dark-green-leaved Hopi corns that I grew the same year in the same field.
A Hopi lady told me at the farmer's market last year that they have always grown Anasazi beans. She was about 40, so I doubt that she is an authority on forever, but she certainly knew what they were and didn't treat them as a novelty introduced in 1983.
LOL! I can see the formation of a new industry... King Tut tomatoes. King Tut Butternut. King Tut sweet corn. Pyramid Tobacco.
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Post by blueadzuki on Jul 7, 2013 0:06:32 GMT -5
LOL! I can see the formation of a new industry... King Tut tomatoes. King Tut Butternut. King Tut sweet corn. Pyramid Tobacco. Well, Given that some (fairly reputable) scientists claim they HAVE found tobacco leaves/tobacco beetles in Egyptian mummies (along with mummy tissue that has tested positive for cocaine) that last one may not be quite as far fetched as it sounds on the surface. (current best guess is that Mr. Heyardal may have been on to something with the Ra II), Plus there are always the Phoenicians. (that they sailed as far as New Guinea is now considered as established fact, as is that some of the tribes on the west coast of Chile did do occasional business in Polynesia.) and those odd bearded Olmec statuettes. Besides there are pyramids in America too. But I like the idea. I guess the Pyramid Tobacco would come from RJR (R.J.Re-Horakhty )
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Post by Deleted on Jul 7, 2013 8:07:33 GMT -5
And Chinese sailors were very likely doing business with the natives on South America's west coast. That could explain how (supposedly) some chicken remains in Peru predate Columbus and how maize cultivation in China predates him by at least 100 years. I have heard that's how the "Japonica" type of maize originiated.
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Post by legume on Jul 7, 2013 9:15:20 GMT -5
Mayz,
What country do you live in? I may be able to help you with purple pericarp lines, if we can navigate seed shipment issues. I have F2 seed of several crosses involving peruvian maize morado.
Send me a private message if you want to discuss this furthur.
Legume
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Post by blueadzuki on Jul 7, 2013 9:19:01 GMT -5
Don't forget the Mayan carvings of elephants (though those could be folk memories of Mammoths and Mastodons passed down from their ancestors, who would have seen them as they moved down into Mesoamerica. Or the moa carving on Angkor Wat.
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