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Post by oldmobie on Apr 29, 2014 17:52:30 GMT -5
It's almost time to plant corn here. Aside from my red/ white/ blue popcorn project (discussed extensively in another thread) I'm mulling over the best groupings to incorporate these collected genetics into landraces. Maybe the best advice is to plant 'em together, only separated by purpose. (Dent, sweet, flint, etc.) Just see what clever traits emerge and select for those. I can do that. If more planning should go into it, now's my chance to take a little guidance. Sweet corns I have: Peaches & Cream Ambrosia My own saved seed from the above 2, most likely crossed Stowell's Hooker's True Platinum Last 3 in tiny quantity from a GardenWeb trade. Popcorns: Pennsylvania Butter Flavored Tiny blue popcorn Boyscout popcorn (variety unknown) Decorative: Rainbow Earthtones Dent "Indian" corn These decorative corns are pretty mixed together. (My kids helped shell it. It was their first time.) The varieties and what the seeds look like are all I know in most cases. I do have an ear of "indian" corn saved seperately because it has purple shucks. I have the seeds of 3 ears of blue popcorn saved seperately because they grew on one plant. I saved the seeds seperately for the ears of "indian" and blue with least bug damage. And I saved the seed seperately from my largest ear I grew.  I think I want to do sweet by itself, my popcorn breeding project by itself, and the decoratives together. (Probably won't grind any, but I hear you can treat 'em like dry beans. I'd like to try that.) I'm also thinking a "mass cross" area, where I can see what emerges. I guess I want to know how to incorporate the size and bug resistence genes into the sweet corns and popcorns, without making them into flours or flints. Do I cross first, then select for sweetness and popability? Also, is there anything I'm just overlooking? Also, I noticed that my decoratives had better pollination than my sweets, even though they were in a smaller planting. (2' X 4', vs 3' X 8' for the sweet) Is that due to better pollen production? Less inbreeding? Anything hereditary I can select for? |
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Post by Joseph Lofthouse on Apr 29, 2014 18:13:13 GMT -5
oldmobie: Woo Hoo! Almost corn planting time for me too. I get serious about planting corn on May 5th.
It'll definitely make life easier if you grow the popcorns, sweets, and decorative corns separately.
If you want to swap traits between the patches, then either drag pollen between patches, or plant a recipient mother plant inside the pollen donor patch and detassel the mother. If the mother is a sweet corn and the pollen donor is a flour/decorative corn then the mother will be converted into a flour/decorative corn. Grow out the seed for one or two years then begin re-selecting for sweet corn and for the other traits that you want.
Those were tiny patches for a wind pollinated crop. The difference might be due to something physical like whether it was windy or raining the day the sweet corn released pollen, or the relative humidity, or the temperature, etc... It could also be due to something heritable, for example decorative corns tend to have more tillers than modern sweet corns and flowering times tend to be more spread out, so they might shed pollen for an extended time compared to the sweet corns.
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Post by 12540dumont on Apr 30, 2014 18:14:15 GMT -5
I have never experimented with breeding corn. GRIN currently has 19,780 (?) corn accessions...
The diversity of corn found in those accessions reflects physical differences in seed color, shape and texture, but also the physiological differences that make some varieties suited to growing in desert environments or the wet tropics. These seeds hold the genes that have accumulated through natural and human selection over hundreds of years. So every person who takes on corn breeding, adds to that heritage.
Me, I'm still looking for the perfect polenta. 6 accessions down....6 more to go.
Oh did I mention that I found the perfect flour corn? Now if only the weather didn't change, it would be the perfect corn every year. Darn, I forgot to take that into account. It so hard not living in Camelot.
Good luck with your project. Carol Deppe has some good info on corn breeding in her book. Breed your own vegetable varieties.
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Post by steev on Apr 30, 2014 22:25:13 GMT -5
Camelot was in cool, foggy Britain, not Mediterranean California, let alone drought-ravaged, global-climate-changed California; Camelot never had lousy polenta, let alone perfect polenta. We must boldly go where we have not gone before. We shall "make it so", (Scotty).
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Post by blueadzuki on May 1, 2014 6:25:24 GMT -5
That makes me wonder, given its location and stable nature, would that mean Andean corn would grow well in Shangri-La?
For a good polenta zone in mythical places I'd say go with Cockaigne (or since polenta is Italian, Cuccagna)The Medieval European origin of our own Big Rock Candy Mountain. If it is a land of infinite plenty, EVERYTHING should grow well there.
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Post by oldmobie on May 1, 2014 10:02:53 GMT -5
Figured I'd try the landrace thing. I'm an utter failure at the purity thing. Can't get corn to reproduce "true" for anything... For years now I've planted bright pink corn from the farmstore, and every year, all I harvest is yellow.  |
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Post by 12540dumont on May 1, 2014 13:14:33 GMT -5
Oh Blue, blush blush...I could not take Leo to Cuckooland...he'd run away with the first tipped over nun.
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Post by philagardener on May 1, 2014 20:21:27 GMT -5
For years now I've planted bright pink corn from the farmstore, and every year, all I harvest is yellow. Funny, I've heard of people who have the same problems with beans!  |
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Post by Joseph Lofthouse on Jul 20, 2014 12:13:02 GMT -5
Figured I'd try the landrace thing. I'm an utter failure at the purity thing. Can't get corn to reproduce "true" for anything... For years now I've planted bright pink corn from the farmstore, and every year, all I harvest is yellow. Ha. That's funny! |
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Post by oldmobie on Oct 4, 2017 13:51:45 GMT -5
oldmobie can you give us an update of how your corn projects are doing? Thanks. My only active corn project this year is the sweet / indian corn. I started by planting a patch of sweet corn; the seeds saved from what had done best for me in the past, and some new-to-me varieties I got through trades. My saved seeds would be mostly descended from Peaches and Cream and Ambrosia. From trade would be mostly Joseph Lofthouse 's strains of LISP Ashworth and Astronomy Domine. In the middle of the patch I planted a few rows of seeds saved from non-sweets with traits I want to bring to my sweet corns. Mostly saved from indian corn and decorative dent corn (Earthtones Rainbow). Saved from ears that were the biggest, the best filled, and / or suffered the least bug damage. I staked these rows to mark them. They were detassled. Basically I followed the advice Joseph gave me earlier in this thread. That patch was generally unhappy. Can't imagine why. Morning shade, compacted soil with no tilling,virgin lawn cut short and smothered with newspaper, compost and potting soil. No chemical inputs, except a little generic osmocote. You know, the conditions modern sweet corns are bred for. None the less, the detassled rows outperformed the sweet corns. A few plants even produced filled ears. I ended up with five or so ears worth of probable half sweet / half less modern seed. Based on a little more of Joseph's advice, I didn't shell them, I dried and stored them on the cobs. This year I did similarly, but in a slightly better location. Further west, there's less morning shade. Raised bed; used to be Mel's Mix, but has been topped up with compost and potting soil. Short rows running north and south, about four feet long. Alternating sweet and half sweet from the patch described above. Three rows of sweet (one each of LISP Ashworth, Astronomy Domine and High Carotene), alternating with two rows my half sweets, ear-to-row. I marked the half sweets to detassle, but stopped doing so because the blooming time is so much later than the sweets I was afraid there'd be no sweet pollen left. The sweet corn harvest has come and gone. We did get a few edible ears. Like four. Poorly pollinated. Whatever, the goats think I should continue growing it. In the half sweets, I'm getting some big, full ears. I've only picked one. Should've thumbnail tested it. The kernels looked and felt mature, but near the tip, the cob showed a little bit of green. It tasted like you'd expect corn to, but less sweet. Maybe genetic, maybe underripe. Sometimes I'd notice a chlorophyll / grassy taste. Before I sample again, I'll confirm milk stage. When I save seed this year, I'll select for wrinkled kernels. Once this project passes through that filter, I expect the next generation will be sweeter. I'll try to get a few pictures on later today. |
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Post by oldmobie on Oct 4, 2017 16:10:44 GMT -5
oldmobie can you give us an update of how your corn projects are doing? Thanks. I'll try to get a few pictures on later today.  That's my patch, if you can call it that. The white stakes indicate half sweet rows. Note the difference in size and vigor between them and the sweets. Some of that will be due to season length. I've gotten tired of throwing ears to the goats because I thought they were ripe when I picked them. So now I shuck one from the first plant in the row, but leave it attached. If it's ripe, I pick it. If it isn't, I leave it as an indicator for that row. If it looks good later, I can eat it. Otherwise, it'll be for seed. This was one of my better sweets.  Here's a good, but fairly typical half sweet.  Another gratutitous cornographic image:  I shucked this one yesterday. The darker purple marks on the tips were already present, though paler. The rest was white. My first (known) photo-sensitive corn! Wonder if the whole sib-group's like this?  |
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Post by oldmobie on Oct 5, 2017 22:35:42 GMT -5
Picked today. Arranged by sibling groups. I have purple / red at fresh eating stage! All tasted good, I call it a success. I'll still try to improve sweetness in the future. I bet the upcoming F2 wrinkled seed selection will help.  |
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Post by steev on Oct 6, 2017 0:15:04 GMT -5
I'm curious about the red one, as I'd really like to have corn still sweet when red.
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Post by oldmobie on Oct 6, 2017 1:55:50 GMT -5
I'm curious about the red one, as I'd really like to have corn still sweet when red. Not very sweet yet, but if all goes well, I'll have seed to share. It'll be pretty small quantity, but it'll increase if it likes your place. |
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Post by reed on Oct 6, 2017 2:29:29 GMT -5
I'm curious about the red one, as I'd really like to have corn still sweet when red. I had some very sweet red corn this year, sorry I can't say for sure what it is but must have come from Ruby Queen se hybrid, Alan Kaupler's Red Double Sweet, Peace Seedlings' Fire on the Mountain or maybe the red kernels from Joseph's AD or the red kernels in Sandhill's Anasazi. Or maybe from the Painted Mountain that was crossed and blended into the sweet mess a couple three seasons ago. Only a couple all red ears got saved for seed this year but I got plenty if you want a little, let me know. |
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