Ashworth x Oaxacan Green ... what to do

[nathanp]

I grew some Ashworth Sweet corn (Joseph's strain), apparently within pollination range of a friend's Oaxacan Green and am wondering what to do with the ears and seeds from the ones that look like they crossed. I have several questions...

1 - is it safe to assume if the Ashworth kernals shrink down like a sweet corn kernal it is not crossed?
2 - is it safe to assume the wide kernels in the Oaxacan are not crossed?
3 - Are the wide kernals in the 2nd and 3rd pictures crossed or just wide?

4 - what to do with the kernels I am assuming are crossed? Chicken feed? Cornmeal?

5 - if I replanted the crossed seed from one parent, the other, or both, what type of corn is that going to turn out to be?

Here are a bunch of pictures.

Two of Ashworth showing several kernels on these ears that appear crossed:



This one has ears with very wide kernals.  Does this mean the seed got crossed or is this normal for Ashworth?


This one shows the size comparison with what is mostly dried that is obviously sweet corn and one that may be crossed but has not dried yet:



This one shows the Oaxacan plants, Red, Green, and two that look crossed.  Are the fatter kernels at the base of the green ear likely crossed?

[Joseph Lofthouse]

If the Ashworth kernels shrink and get wrinkly they are not crossed. They still look a bit wet, so it will be easier to see in a few weeks.

I think that I couldn't tell whether or not the Oaxacan are crossed regardless of that the kernels look like this year. (Next year if a cob gets wrinkled kernels in it then it was crossed.) What's the nature of your prevailing winds? If the wind was blowing from his garden to yours most of the time, then your corn might not have pollinated his.

If you have around 20 extra [Ashworth X Oaxacan Green] crossed kernels that you don't have a use for I'd love to grow them out... That's one of the crosses on my list of things to do eventually. I'd expect the children of this cross to have traits that are midway between those of the two parents: So 2-4 feet taller than Ashworth, with days to maturity (to milk stage) around 75. About 1/4 of the kernels would be expected to be sweet corn and 3/4 dent corn.

The wide kernels are within the normal range for LISP Ashworth. It looks like pollination was a bit spotty, which leads to even larger kernels on most varieties of corn.

[blueadzuki]

Agreeing with Joseph. When a cob doesn't get well pollinated and the kernels don't have other kernels pushing up against them, they tend to get a little bigger and rounder (and flatter). In extreme examples you get what I refer to as "buttons" (like what you have on the bluish cob in the last pic) In the case of dents it is also not unusual for such kernels to develop weaker dimples, if any, as a lot of the dimple formation comes from the pressure on the kernel from it's neighbors.
Thiery usually great for planting. Such kernels being larger, often have a bit of extra stored up food, which can result in a larger healthier plant. (I remember in college a lecture in plant science where the teacher explained that, in the modern growing of corn, it is often normal to remove all the butt kernels (the larger more irregular ones near the base of the cob) and discard them at harvest since they can clog the systems used to process the corn. When I asked why they simply didn't re use the butts as the next years seed the reply he gave is that that would make sense for a small timer, but modern farmers NEVER saved their own seed.) The only issue is that evry know and again such kernels can get malformed germs. The extreme spread of the uninhibited kernel can, in theory cause the germ to get folded in ways that make it harder for it to sprout correctly. The germ will also often end up parallel to the cob so the germ can get crushed if the husk is too tight.

[nathanp]

The spacing was 60' between the Ashworth and Oaxacan. Not sure what the wind was like. Both were planted on my friend's property and we spaced out planting dates based on growing degree days in an average year and it was much cooler this year, so that threw off the planned separation. Oh well, you can't get everything right!?