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Post by kevin8715 on Apr 5, 2014 10:46:40 GMT -5
What lows can they stand? My temparture only get down to 30F but I imagine since it is tropicel they wouldn't be able to stand that. Covering corn would be a really pain. Any short varieties available? I have access to a greenhouse and can probaly use 15 gallon pots (probaly still too small).
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Post by blueadzuki on Apr 5, 2014 12:05:05 GMT -5
Holly, Maiz Morado should be so deep purple it is almost black and the entire kernel should be colored including the shield area. If your corn is different from this, it is not maiz morado. This corn has the hp gene which dramatically increases pigment production. Quick question. Is Maiz morado more of a variety or a trait. That is is ANY corn that has the hp hyperactivity gene basically considered a maiz morado, or does it have to come from a specific ancestry. I've seen a lot of cob that are just as deep a purple as commecial Maiz morado all over the place northern corns included. Are they all funtionally usable for the same? I've even seen one or two that have morado's duller looking pericarp which may be part of the morado as well (since morado is most often used in S. America to make the chicha morado drink, I imagine having a pericarp that is good at letting the anthocyanins out when boiled is important economically.) I even have a cob of what is in essence waht appears to Andean corn with the morado skin (and before anyone asks, no, I'm not handing out seeds of that, because it's the only intact andean cob I have left. and I want to keep it that way). To me, at least, the Maiz morado sold commercially LOOKS more like a lowland corn than and andean (it has longish cobs and smallish hard kernels, like what I think of as "normal" corn [as opposed to the shorter fatter andean "pine cones") So is there actually a specific line of Morado, or is it just a lot of unrelated corns collectively grouped together by a single common morphological trait?
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Post by maicerochico on Apr 5, 2014 19:34:50 GMT -5
Nicollas, the last accession you linked is an early selection developed in Canada from Cargill's original Coroico composite. It has an even lower frequency of multiple aleurones than the original, so I wouldn't bother with it unless your season is very short.
Ilex, with your warm Mediterranean climate, getting tropical maize to shed pollen won't be a problem. You still probably won't get many ear-producing plants.
Kevin, what is your latitude, and when is your first frost? At that hardiness zone, you'll have plenty of heat and shouldn't have any problem getting tropical corns to tassel. There won't be any need to cover or start them early.
Blueadzuki, "Maiz Morado" is a trait, not a race in the strict sense. It simply refers to a variety that has been selected for deep cherry-black or red pericarps. Collections with that name can either be pure or heterogenous for the color. "Morado" corns are grown throughout the Andes from sea level on Peru's central coast to 10,000 feet. Most of the Maiz Morado found for sale is actually from commercial strains bred by Peru's Universidad Nacional Agraria, La Molina in Lima. There is a lowland type tailored to production at sea level in Peru's corn belt on the central coast and a highland type for production near Cuzco. The sea level type typically has more rows, smaller and flintier seeds, and cylindrical ears; it is the result of backcrossing the kernel color into Caribbean flints and dents. Highland Morado types are little more than black pericarp versions of typical Cuzco Gigante. There are many Morado heirlooms in Ecuador, Peru, Bolivia, and Chile, but they won't be seen outside of the Andes. The trait also occurs in the completely unrelated Amazonian jungle maize at a low frequency, and it is found sparsely in Mexican corns at all elevations. All corns with a cherry-black pericarp can be used in the same manner.
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Post by blueadzuki on Apr 5, 2014 22:17:50 GMT -5
Thank you for the update
When I have the time to take a picture there is another corn I had a question about. Amongst my andean corn kenels there are a handful with a pattern I have not seed in any other corn. Not knowing the real name, I usually refer to it as "pluma de pavo" (turkey feathers). In this, the base color of the kenerls is a sort of yellowy bronze. On to of this are a series of overlapping "V"s running from the tip down to about 1/4 of the way down. Hence the name since the pattern looks a little like feathers. Thing is I don't know if this is an actual trait or some sort of damage. I've never seen it on kernels on actual cob (well there was one cob in that cache I mentioned that had horseshoe shaped spots on the ends of the kernels that looked like a minor version of something like this) And being andean, I know my chances of planting it and seeing if the trait is carried on is remote. So my question is, are you aware of a pattern that sort of sounds like this?
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Post by maicerochico on Apr 6, 2014 13:47:34 GMT -5
Blueadzuki, I think I may know what you are talking about, but I will have to see a picture before I can be sure. Let me know when you get a picture posted.
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Post by blueadzuki on Apr 6, 2014 16:11:36 GMT -5
Pictures (sorry this is the best resolution my camera can do.)
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Post by maicerochico on Apr 7, 2014 8:32:19 GMT -5
I haven't seen that trait much. I'd wager that the color comes from the pericarp with some modifiers causing the pigment to be produced only in certain parts. It doesn't look like damage to me, but I'm not an expert.
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Post by blueadzuki on Apr 7, 2014 9:32:51 GMT -5
That seems likely. Back when I took apart the cob that had the "horseshoes" (same sort of thing, but only one "mark" per kernel) I actually peeled a few of them. The marks were still visible with the pericarp removed, but I am well aware that pericarp pigments staining the lower levels when soaked is not at all uncommon. Oddly, I haven seen it myself for a while. All of the kernels in the photo are rather old; from back in the days before I found my current source bodega and had to get my corn in pre-sealed bags. Ever since I switched over to the current place (which sells the corn in bins so I can selectively pick out colored and pattered kernels. I haven't seen one. So there are purpled peri'd versions of Cuzco Gigante. Intersting. I have no idea why I came to this conclusion but I always though all Gigante was white and white alone. I suppose I thought this because in my hunting I see so little colored or patterned giangte, low enough to assume all of the ones I did were the effects of errant pollen. In all of the time I have gone through the bins, I think I have found maybe 8 non pure white kernels (mostly minor purple mottling and or red blushes and chinmark peri's) Serve me right for assuming that what is available commerically was an accurate sample of what exists in toto. I remember seeing the red skinned one someone posted. By any chance do Andean Sweetcorns behave any better in the temperate zones than the flour do. One of the cobs I got from that cache had 12 sweet kernels on it and i still have it (they were sweet, andean AND chinmarked, how could I throw away sometihng like that!) If sweet are a little better beahved up here, maybe it would be worth trying them.
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Post by maicerochico on Apr 7, 2014 9:45:49 GMT -5
No, Andean sweet corns are just as problematic in temperate areas as floury ones. The shrunken kernels may be contaminants from a Chulpi population, which happens to be the latest maturing of all Sierra races in the central and southern Andes and extremely late to tassel in temperate zones. I wouldn't waste my time with those kernels, but if you want to experiment, then go for it.
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Post by blueadzuki on Apr 7, 2014 9:54:44 GMT -5
I'll probably hold off. Even if it did work, 12 kernels are a lousy population to start with; especially when you have the pollination area issues I have (my corn patch is tiny about 10x10, and the wind has a tendency to blow most of the pollen past the plants.) If I do ANYTHING with the andean, I think the safest bet is to put one kernel in each hill along with more temperate corns, and hope that what little pollen I get off those of them that are early gets into them, and some of the progeny get whatever traits I want of the Andean I want inside them (I don't actually care much about the kernel size of the andean, what I want is the high incidence of stippling, and maybe the colored endosperm (some of the purple kernels I find are purple all the way through)
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Post by oxbowfarm on Sept 6, 2014 9:14:30 GMT -5
The maturities of the Coroico I'm growing are all over the place. A few of them, with very low ear attachment (12" off the ground) have already made black layer, so I'm getting a trickle of ears to look at. This ear has a really good expression of row interlocking. On some of the ears like this one, the rows are almost overlapped with some rows deeper/closer to the cob and the alternate rows projecting out slightly. Hopefully that shows up in the picture.
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Post by oxbowfarm on Sept 23, 2014 19:30:26 GMT -5
Some of the Coroico had these really odd, super-long ear shanks. I don't think this is a useful or desirable trait so I didn't select any seed ears from long shank plants, but I did keep a couple of them just because.
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Post by steve1 on Mar 19, 2016 18:08:42 GMT -5
Just wondering whether anyone has dried and frozen pollen of Peruvian Giant corn as per Carol Deppes process? If so any chance it'll be viable in 9-12 months? The corn has grown well 3.5 m, developed an extensive root system and handled temperatures to 40'C with no issues. It's tasseling now at the autumn equinox, but no sign of silks. As I've read that may be a month away and I want to be sure that there is viable pollen for that, and for the crosses that I had initially dreamt up before I found out this corn was day length sensitive. Would be much easier to do the crosses next year if I can store the pollen. Any thoughts appreciated.
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Post by keen101 (Biolumo / Andrew B.) on Mar 19, 2016 18:16:59 GMT -5
The maturities of the Coroico I'm growing are all over the place. A few of them, with very low ear attachment (12" off the ground) have already made black layer, so I'm getting a trickle of ears to look at. This ear has a really good expression of row interlocking. On some of the ears like this one, the rows are almost overlapped with some rows deeper/closer to the cob and the alternate rows projecting out slightly. Hopefully that shows up in the picture. Just noticed this today. WOW! That corn looks VERY interesting! Any chance there will be some to share in the future? I'm always on the lookout for novel ornamental corn traits.
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Post by maicerochico on Mar 19, 2016 19:14:19 GMT -5
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