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Post by garand555 on Aug 29, 2016 22:36:58 GMT -5
Then you likely are looking at segregation rather than cross pollination (sorry, you probably knew that but it wasn't clear to me from your initial description ). In corn kernels, the endosperm is covered by the aleurone and pericarp layers. Each can be colored in different ways, and the genetics is complicated with color gene, enhancer gene and suppressor gene networks in the different tissues. It would be informative to section carefully a few kernels with a razor blade (easier before they dry completely!) to get a better view of what is going on inside. Here are a few older threads that have some relevant info and images: alanbishop.proboards.com/thread/6258alanbishop.proboards.com/thread/6702The Halloween Corn idea sounds like a neat project! I'm not sure if my super fine motor skills are good enough for that. I do come from a background with a lot of CS, so my understanding of genetics isn't expert level by any means. Thinking about how diploid genetics interacts with triploid genetics in the same seed is pretty crazy. I look at plant breeding more like a genetic algorithm, which is rather ironic when you think about where the inspiration for genetic algorithms came from. I do think I know which neighbour I can go grovelling to for a plot to start the Halloween corn breeding project. I might be able to convince her to let me enough space for 500 plants. I'd rather go bigger, but beggars can't be choosers and truthfully, having a locally adapted cultivar that doesn't rely on industrial inputs is more important to me.
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Post by keen101 (Biolumo / Andrew B.) on Aug 30, 2016 23:38:00 GMT -5
Looks like a fun project. The orange ones look like they are the chin marked kernels (the chinmarking is caused by transposons or "jumping genes"). In my experience nearly all chinmarking comes in the color orange. A few years back i was heavily selecting my chinmarked kernels toward purple and red and was having some success as i started to get pink chinmarking. I need to redo that project one of these days.
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Post by garand555 on Aug 31, 2016 19:07:50 GMT -5
Looks like a fun project. The orange ones look like they are the chin marked kernels (the chinmarking is caused by transposons or "jumping genes"). In my experience nearly all chinmarking comes in the color orange. A few years back i was heavily selecting my chinmarked kernels toward purple and red and was having some success as i started to get pink chinmarking. I need to redo that project one of these days. The third one down, yes. I've had them do that in red too, but I agree, they're normally orange. The problem with that picture is that the lighting is not very good, but the top cob has some kernels that are an orange that are just off of the color you would expect a pumpkin to be. I asked the owner of a local nursery that deals in local plants if he thought people would be interested in an orange and black corn, and his eyes lit up and he really thought that there would be.
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Post by blueadzuki on Aug 31, 2016 21:21:01 GMT -5
Assuming that what you are looking for is a decorative corn (which would presumably be a flint) as opposed to a corn on the cob sweet corn, (which is what I think you said earlier), the easiest way would probably be by crossing a corn with white or yellow endosperm and a mixed clear and dark blue or purple aleurone with one with a pericarp that is solid orange (your top ear in your photo seems to have that already) I'm not saying that mixing in the orange endosperm isn't doable but if all you are after is an orange and black ornamental corn, it may not be necessary. The orange over the blue or purple will make the black you are after (in fact, pretty much all "black" corns are really just extremely dark purple or blue) All you'd really need is to find a corn that tends to split on aleurone color pretty cleanly (so you get white/yellow and dark blue/green-purple/brown, as opposed to shades and inter-grades) and to keep the corn as flinty as possible. Flinty endosperm will mean translucency and therefore a deeper color. (the top two ears in your picture look a little too floury and opaque).
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Post by oxbowfarm on Sept 9, 2016 7:56:25 GMT -5
It is very very difficult to detect orange endosperm in corns with a lot of pericarp color. Now that I am selecting for orange in my flint I am roguing out all the colored pericarp from my population, and kicking myself for starting with the Cascade Series flints and Bronze Beauty which are so chock full of pericarp color genes. The lightest pink/orange tinted pericarp will skew your perception of the endosperm color. I have to sort my potential seed ears in bright sunlight and examine the butts to check for colored attachments, etc.
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Post by reed on Sept 9, 2016 13:00:47 GMT -5
I'm going the other way, toward white endosperm in my sweet corn but might it be possible to just select for orange? I ask because some of my sweet ears definitely have clear pericarp as they have some snow white kernels. They also however have a wide range of yellow. Some so light I might call them white if not for the actual white ones to compare, ranging to much much darker. I see it on ears descended from AD as well as from SE+ varieties.
Or is what you folks are talking about an entirely different thing?
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Post by oxbowfarm on Sept 9, 2016 16:06:34 GMT -5
I'm going the other way, toward white endosperm in my sweet corn but might it be possible to just select for orange? I ask because some of my sweet ears definitely have clear pericarp as they have some snow white kernels. They also however have a wide range of yellow. Some so light I might call them white if not for the actual white ones to compare, ranging to much much darker. I see it on ears descended from AD as well as from SE+ varieties. Or is what you folks are talking about an entirely different thing? You definitely CAN visually select for dark orange endosperm, even to the individual kernels on an ear, but you have to be able to see the endosperm color clearly. This requires clear, colorless pericarp as a window to the true endosperm shade.
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Post by blueadzuki on Sept 9, 2016 16:10:31 GMT -5
I'm going the other way, toward white endosperm in my sweet corn but might it be possible to just select for orange? I ask because some of my sweet ears definitely have clear pericarp as they have some snow white kernels. They also however have a wide range of yellow. Some so light I might call them white if not for the actual white ones to compare, ranging to much much darker. I see it on ears descended from AD as well as from SE+ varieties. Or is what you folks are talking about an entirely different thing? You definitely CAN visually select for dark orange endosperm, even to the individual kernels on an ear, but you have to be able to see the endosperm color clearly. This requires clear, colorless pericarp as a window to the true endosperm shade. Colorless aleurone too. I know from experience that pink aleurone over a yellow endosperm can look as orange as anything.
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Post by jondear on Sept 9, 2016 19:24:52 GMT -5
Of the four South American corns I'm growing, all have clear aleurone, and only one has any color to the pericarp. It says on grin, either clear uniform or orange/halo for that once accession. Not sure how much of a hassle that'll be to select from... I'm confident I'll harvest mosty dry ears on the Canadian selected cateto, and a pretty good amount from cateto, and possibly a few mature ears out of the little red flint (Ames 25250) and the "Cordoba" corn pi 492896... I still have a good month, maybe more, before frosts.
Provided the birds and other critters leave it be... I already pulled 3 ears that birds were tearing into. They seem orangish, but no where near as deep as the pictures you guys have posted... Hopefully there will be some there just waiting for me to husk it
😂
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Post by oxbowfarm on Sept 9, 2016 20:53:03 GMT -5
Colorless aleurone too. I know from experience that pink aleurone over a yellow endosperm can look as orange as anything. Yes, I forgot about colored aleurone, I don't have any in my corns thank God.
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Post by oxbowfarm on Sept 18, 2016 9:03:41 GMT -5
Super happy with this ear of Cargill Caribbean Composite X Oxbow Flint F1. The entire ear is much darker yellow than the original Cascade series flints I started with, and there are very orange kernels sprinkled all over it, so there are good indications I can get ears this size with very orange uniform endosperm. My dream is an ear like this or larger with endosperm as dark as Ames 25250.
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Post by Joseph Lofthouse on Sept 18, 2016 18:15:09 GMT -5
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Post by steev on Sept 19, 2016 20:27:24 GMT -5
Wow!
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Post by oxbowfarm on Sept 26, 2016 9:07:15 GMT -5
Image of an average sample of my flint population. These ears were harvested as I was looking for seed ears and either got rejected as a seed ear or I harvested them because they were getting attacked by birds and/or rodents. Animal damage has been pretty severe this year, while disease has been very low. The drought has apparently suppressed Northern Leaf Blight to a great degree, although it is present in the flint, but much less than is normal. I don't think that is much to do with my selection for NLB resistant individuals as I have not been selecting for that prior to two years ago, and I cannot imagine I've had much impact yet. There is also a very tiny amt of rust appearing, but it is far too late to affect yield. I clearly have a lot of work to do to increase the carotene saturation of the average ear, but this corn is much more orange on average than what I started with. There is also a very dramatic reduction in red/pigmented pericarps down to less than 10% vs the 70-80% of my original flint grex of Cascade Series/Abenaki/Bronze Beauty. Ear shape and kernel row numbers are all over the place.
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Post by jondear on Oct 23, 2016 20:23:31 GMT -5
I'll be using Southern Redneck Flint for a working name for now... I love this corn! The plants are huge...there is a lot of variability to make selections from. The biggest downfall is it late maturity. Little Red Flint. Other than the deep color, this corn isn't going to be very useful for me. You can see a lot of it isn't very mature. The kernels are tiny... I left the husk on the earliest to mature cob of LRF. It also is one of the darkest. I kind of like the dark kernels on a few cobs... Might be nice in it's our right. Canadian selected Cateto. Very early to dry down compared to the others. Cobs are set low on a 5 1/2 foot plant. It's hard to see, but there are some nice orange kernels that I'll be selecting. Cateto... Plenty to select from here... A really nice corn
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