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Post by richardw on Jan 8, 2013 14:43:41 GMT -5
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Post by raymondo on Jan 8, 2013 15:25:20 GMT -5
Not strictly speaking an 'old' corn but plenty of it in its parentage, I'm growing some Astronomy Domine, Alan's corn as grown by Joseph. Like Joseph, and I expect Alan, I too have added some other corns - some se+ hybrids and some Golden Bantam. I will continue to do so. BTW, my earlier post with all the GDD stuff was for Joseph. He's interested in knowing it for his Astronomy Domine corn. For those interested, I use the following formula:
GD = Average of daily high and low minus the base temperature (as Holly indicated above)
I work in Celsius. My base is 10°C. In addition, if the daliy low is less than zero it is reset to zero and if the daily high is greater than 30°C it is reset to 30°C. I'm not sure that the reset to a maximum of 30°C is necessary for corn but that's the formula I've been using. When the corn is finished and drying in the shed (I'm growing for a seed bulk up) I'll send Joseph the data file and he can calculate the GDD as he sees fit.
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Post by cortona on Jan 8, 2013 18:30:35 GMT -5
nice to know tha tmy corn are tasselling! good job my friend! wen you have some news let me know it!
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Post by steev on Jan 8, 2013 20:25:37 GMT -5
Cortona! Did those greeting cards ever get to you?
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Post by cortona on Jan 9, 2013 11:46:32 GMT -5
sorry steev, i've recived a packet from Holly but nothing other, so i'm waithing patient!
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Post by adamus on Jan 9, 2013 16:04:57 GMT -5
Does anyone, whether farmer or gardener, grow any of the old fashioned open pollinated or hybrid field corns down there. Here a catalog called Shumway's sells, in bulk old fashioned types such as Lancaster Sure Crop, Silvermine, Boone County White, Goliath etc. that are all tall, 12-15+ feet high. Some is grown for feed and silage, while I just grow it mostly to feed the squirrels. (Got a couple of real fat ones this winter.) I was just wondering if the old types are available down there or if you have other old types we do not. Well, RPR, I've never heard of those types. The ones I remember from childhood(50 years ago) are, Golden Bantam, sweet gold, one called Kelvedon Glory, but it's a hybrid. Australia doesn't have a "corn culture" like the US. Most people would only know sweet corn, or feed corn. and they wouldn't know the difference probably. I'd chance to say most people would think corn flour comes from dried and ground sweet corn. Last year at the market, I had people question the fact that i had corn with some white kernels. One or two told me outright that it wasn't ripe, because ripe corn is all yellow. I just tell them the story, and then keep it all for myself and the neighbours. I've actually got the neighbour eating corn fresh from the plant, not cooking it first.
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Post by templeton on Jan 9, 2013 16:58:26 GMT -5
My tasselling Bon Jour, that got cooked in last week's heat wave. Silking seems to be a bit delayed, and the heat appears to have affected the tassels. I'm also wondering about my landlady's generic sweet corn which is about 50 yards away, and which is just beginning to tassel. (She didn't tell me she was planting sweet corn until after I had already planted mine out She's only got in about 20 or so plants, so I'm wondering about the issues of pollen pollution. I was trying to do a seed increase on the Bon Jour. Any thoughts? The Bon Jour is nicely tillering, - which I think I like. The AshworthXse+ at home seems to be only single stemmed- I would do a bit of hand pollination, but the ashworth is mostly past silking now BTW, No idea of GDD, except the Bon Jour and the Floriani are a week or two later than the Ashworth. Attachments:
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Post by Joseph Lofthouse on Jan 9, 2013 17:23:26 GMT -5
Templeton: Thanks for photos.
At 50 yards separation, I would expect around 2-5 pollinations per cob from your landlady's corn if they are flowering at the same time. Perhaps much less than that, because in addition to the distance factor, there is a dilution factor going on. Your hundreds of local plants are producing gobs more pollen than her 20 plants are, and the pollen from her plants is swamped out by all of your local pollen.
At my gardens average summer wind speed. Pollen grains travel about 25 feet before they fall below silk height.
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Post by raymondo on Jan 10, 2013 3:29:15 GMT -5
My flour corn patch. It hasn't been the most successful garden but I'm hoping to get some seed from it. It's a mix of Hickory White, Posole Santo Domingo, Cortona's flour corn (I selected white kernles) and a red flour/dent corn which I intend detasselling. The first lot is around 1.5m tall. The second lot has hardly grown. The third lot was not worth photographing! This is only the second time in my life that I have grown corn. The first time was a disaster, embarassing too becasue I had agreed to bulk up seed for someone. Anyway, lesson learned. The spacing this time is much better. The corn plants are all happily tillering and I've read that that's an indicator of sufficient spacing. Despite poor germination and poor growth of the second and especially third sowings, I'm quite pleased with the results.
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Post by raymondo on Jan 27, 2013 2:30:15 GMT -5
Bad news for my flour corn patch. Most of the plants are just beginning to tassel and silk and rain has set in. The forecast is for three solid days of it. Bummer!
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Post by 12540dumont on Jan 27, 2013 13:08:32 GMT -5
Raymundo, which had the least germination? Don't worry about the rain, water is good.
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Post by raymondo on Jan 27, 2013 15:36:32 GMT -5
Both the white flour corns I already had germinated poorly, especially the later sown ones. It will be enough to get some crossed seed for the next growout, which is what I am after.
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Post by keen101 (Biolumo / Andrew B.) on Jan 27, 2013 20:26:18 GMT -5
Looking good ray! Yeah rain is good. Corn takes practice. Keep working at it and you'll get better.
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Post by raymondo on Jan 30, 2013 3:25:30 GMT -5
Looking good ray! Yeah rain is good. Corn takes practice. Keep working at it and you'll get better. Sure hope so keen. Thanks for the encouragement.
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Post by steev on Jan 30, 2013 22:01:12 GMT -5
There are reports here of excessive rain in Oz; hope that's not you, Ray.
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