|
Post by Walk on Sept 1, 2012 8:41:54 GMT -5
Joseph - What pollen parent would be best to get purple ears? Is the purple color linked to the maternal parent like with red? I read that blue is a color in the aleurone and yellow is in the germ? Also, blue is somewhat dominant? Not sure how the Reverend Morrow has yellow in the sweet stage and dark purple when mature. I think that the only difference between Midnight Snack and Improved Golden Bantam that I'm looking for is color related and want to maximize my chances with the cross. Need help understanding the genetics involved.
As for corn height, I was talking to another farmer who says that corn height can be affected by plant spacing. He says that his sweet corns with wider spacing are shorter and more likely to tiller. The same varieties planted with tight spacing don't tiller at all and are taller. I guess this makes sense in terms of Native American corns that were planted in widely spaced hills. The extra spacing may have given more yield in terms of extra tillers to make up for the reduced number of plants in a tightly packed, modern row system.
|
|
Deleted
Deleted Member
Posts: 0
|
Post by Deleted on Sept 1, 2012 9:15:42 GMT -5
Drahkk, I can confirm what your neighbors said about cowpeas; I planted two 75 foot rows of 3 different types this year into high N ground in mid-May, and they're just now starting to bloom. Interestingly, a few plants on the edges where the soil was poorer were finished and dry in 90 days. Exact same varieties, exact same planting date, but different N levels.
|
|
|
Post by Joseph Lofthouse on Sept 1, 2012 9:35:10 GMT -5
I don't have any hard data, but I'll offer an observation. I'd say that final corn height depends more on available water than on nitrogen. Corn that doesn't get enough water is stunted, and grows slowly regardless of how much nitrogen is applied. This is easy to see in one of my fields which has a lot of tree roots competing with the corn, and in a different field where the spray pattern of the irrigation water is not consistent, but the application of urea was consistent in both cases.
When I plant many varieties of corn side by side, and don't fertilize them, I notice some with dark green plants, and some with almost yellow leaves. Adding nitrogen definitely contributes to darker green leaves.
Walk: I don't know the corn you are talking about specifically, but in general, a corn cob that is entirely purple is due to maternal tissue in the seed coat, or due to purple sap. These are both maternal characteristics. If the plant is purple as well, then the color is due to sap. What that means in practical terms, is that selection is difficult, because purple cobs may yield many offspring that are not purple, and that do not even carry the purple trait. Because you never quite know what the pollen parent is until after you have grown out the seed, it takes more generations to isolate a purely purple strain. You might can reduce the time somewhat if you weed out plants before tasseling based on the color of the leaves: Keep only plants with lots of purple in the stems and leaves. It doesn't matter which parent you use as the pollen donor. You gotta grow out the F2 in either case before you can start selecting. [With aleurone or endosperm color you can select individual seed colors in the F1.]
Blue coloration can arise either in the aleurone or the pericarp: Glass Gem for example has some percentage of blue pericarp. If all of the necessary helper genes are present, gray/blue aleurone will show up in the first generation. If the whole cob has a purple/blue color to it that is due to pericarp coloring. Then that color may be modified based on the color of the deeper layers.
The pericarp and aleurone colors usually develop after the endosperm color, and get darker as the corn ages: For example leading to yellow cobs turning red/purple/orange/green.
|
|
|
Post by Walk on Sept 1, 2012 13:19:20 GMT -5
Thanks Joseph - I'll have to reread this a few times to ponder the implications. Sounds like I should just let the plants cross without regard to maternal or paternal selection. I'll just select whatever cobs look most like what I'm after and keep doing that for several years until the variety comes true.
|
|
|
Post by mayz on Sept 7, 2012 5:45:03 GMT -5
Hey bjargakarlinn Are you after something like that? Attachments:
|
|
|
Post by raymondo on Sept 7, 2012 7:25:49 GMT -5
The photo caption talks about a corn/teosinte cross. Is this what one can expect from such a cross?
|
|
|
Post by keen101 (Biolumo / Andrew B.) on Sept 7, 2012 10:13:57 GMT -5
The photo caption talks about a corn/teosinte cross. Is this what one can expect from such a cross? This is the first time i have seen such a photo, but i have to say that is pretty awesome. Ray, i think this is a genuine teosinte hybrid based on my growing some teosinte the last few seasons. It appears to have the same seed stacking pattern as the teosinte, but instead of tesinte seeds it has maize cobs instead which is really cool! The photo is probably 3rd or fourth generation after such a cross. possibly with some maize back crossing.
|
|
|
Post by mayz on Sept 7, 2012 10:36:43 GMT -5
According the book it's a (maize x teosinte)x maize
bravo! keen101
|
|
|
Post by oxbowfarm on Sept 8, 2012 19:48:27 GMT -5
Talking about breeding for multiple cobs per plant, I'm growing out Bronze Beauty Flint and it is showing something along these lines. I don't know what to call this trait but many plants have multiple ears (2-5) produced at the same node. From what I can tell, one of them is almost always very much larger than the rest but there are often three ears that have set seed at a single node on these plants. It might be a candidate to throw into your mix. If you are looking for lots of ear bearing tillers then you probably want a lot of the Northern Flint/Flour genetics.
|
|
Deleted
Deleted Member
Posts: 0
|
Post by Deleted on Sept 10, 2012 13:04:51 GMT -5
Yes, mayz, that looks like something that I would prefer. Maybe not 4 ears per node, but 2 - 3 would be great. Oxbow, yes, Northern flint corn tillers well, but teosinte does so even better and without the developmental problems that some Northern flints' tillers have. Teosinte would also give very strong bracer root development compared to NF, whose tends to be very poor.
|
|
Deleted
Deleted Member
Posts: 0
|
Post by Deleted on Sept 10, 2012 13:07:57 GMT -5
|
|
|
Post by keen101 (Biolumo / Andrew B.) on Sept 14, 2012 11:15:40 GMT -5
bjargakarlinn: I took a photo earlier today of the zea plant for you. It grew as a volunteer, which probably means that i dropped the seed this spring, so I don't know what it is, perhaps a popcorn, or something from the keen101 hybrid swarm, or glass gem, or a teosinte. It currently has 16 ears on it distributed between 3 stalks of approximately equal size. Cobs that are born higher on the stalk seem to be more resistant to animal predation. With my hard clayish soil, I don't have to worry about lodging or brace roots, or hilling, but I have noticed some plants with brace roots in the hybrid swarm. The only time I hill corn is while cultivating if the in-row weeds are small enough to be smothered if buried in a couple inches of soil and the corn is tall enough to not be smothered. I planted teosinte this spring, but it hasn't flowered yet, and most of the rest of the hybrid swarm has finished flowering, so there may not be any interspecies crossing. And it's getting late in the season. Don't know if there will be 3 weeks of frost free weather for it to mature seed even if it did flower now. Joseph, i just noticed this photo today! ..if i commented on it before i dont remember.. anyway, WOW! What is that thing? I would love to think it came from my hybrid swarm, but i honestly have no idea. two years ago i did try really hard to transfer the green pollen from that teosinte plant onto some of my corn silks, but i had assumed i was unsuccessful. Whether it came from me or not, it sure deserves to be saved and replanted! Do you have any photos of the color of the seeds from these 16 ears of corn?
|
|
|
Post by Joseph Lofthouse on Sept 14, 2012 11:37:47 GMT -5
The 16 eared plant is still weeks away from harvest. I'm planning on posting a photo update when it's picked. One thing this plant has going for it is that it's growing all by itself. Number of cobs tends to be higher that way.
Still no signs of flowering on the teosinte or gamagrass that I planted as part of the keen101 hybrid swarm.
|
|
|
Post by Joseph Lofthouse on Sept 14, 2012 23:41:24 GMT -5
Last spring I planted a hybrid swarm of corn for Keen101. It looked like flour and flint corns. It also contained gamagrass, and at least two kinds of teosinte. Some of the teosinte/gamagrass are just starting to tassel. Next week I'll go on a search and rescue to see if I can find any corn plants with potentially receptive silks. Even though it was a pick-for-market day, and a frost emergency, I still took time to play just before sunset, and made a walk-through video of the patch. Probably only of interest to Keen101 and to Cortona who's corn gets a shout-out after 7:35.
|
|
|
Post by oxbowfarm on Sept 15, 2012 6:38:58 GMT -5
That is really beautiful corn Joseph. I am struck by how clean it all looks at the end of the season, all of my corn is mostly drying down now, but all of the foliage is at least partially infected with eyespot and rusts of various kinds. I suppose it is the low humidity combined with high UV that prevents fungal disease for you. Even the exposed ear tips look clean and fabulous. On my corn any tip that pokes out gets attacked by ants bringing aphid cows and the tip quickly turns grey/black with mold.
|
|