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Post by jondear on Nov 1, 2014 18:50:23 GMT -5
I've been reading a lot about Lisp Ashworth, both here and on Lisp's site. I thought I'd give it a go and try to cross my own with se/SE types. In my opinion it doesn't need to be 100% se to be a good early corn.
From what I gather, most of you are using the su as the mother plant. Is there a particular reason you couldn't use the SE as the mother plant and Ashworth as the pollen donor to overcome inbreeding depression?
I'm new to breeding corn, but I can grow it just fine. I'm just looking for help with finding the "proper" technique. My plan was to detassel the Ashworth and pollinate with one or more of these corns: Luscious, Navajo, Chippawa, Sugar Buns or maybe Sugar Pearl. I may grow several of the se/SE types to help with overlap of pollination times.
I'd be perfectly content to be able to grow an open pollinated bi-color or even tri-color sweet corn with a sufficient population to save seed and have enough to eat through the winter.
I guess I'm asking for advice and suggestions to get me started.
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Post by Joseph Lofthouse on Nov 1, 2014 19:56:03 GMT -5
It is my general policy to use the wilder parent as the mother and the more industrialized as the pollen donor. I don't quite trust the cytoplasm of machine oriented agriculture, so I choose older and/or wilder mothers whenever possible. Either way is logically fine, it's just a superstition on my part to distrust industrial-Ag.
The days to maturity of your suggested pollen donors ranged from 67 to 75 days. The Ashworth that I got from LISP is about a 60 day corn, but the seed catalogs are advertising 72 to 75 DTM. I suggest a few plantings of Ashworth: planting a new row when the previous row is about 3" tall.
Interplanting the different varieties and not detasseling any of them would work fine too. In my cold garden se+ corn germinates unreliably, so if I plant a mixed su,su/se,se+ population in cold weather I select over the years for su corn...
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Post by jondear on Nov 2, 2014 14:25:06 GMT -5
Thanks for the tips Joseph. I was going by the DTM from fedco and tried to think of varieties that were on both ends. I also based those on plant and ear height. Any suggestions for varieties that might work better?
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Post by Carol Deppe on Nov 4, 2014 6:03:02 GMT -5
When you choose which plant to use as the mother you are choosing which cytoplasm to preserve in your new variety. If one variety is more cold-hardy or heat-tolerant or disease resistant that inclines me towards preserving its cytoplasm, since those characteristics might be cytoplasmically inherited. If one cytoplasm is common I prefer to preserve the other. Sometimes I use as female whatever is easiest. If I'm crossing a white corn to a black it is a lot easier to use the white as female parent and just pick out all the black kernels instead of bothering to detassel. Lots of times, though, I simply plant alternating rows of the desired parents, don't detassel, and let them all mix it up together over the generations.
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Post by jondear on Nov 6, 2014 20:56:17 GMT -5
I plan to use the "plant together and pick out the crosses" on my dry corn next year. Then I have every intention to try making hominy and or meal with most of the rest of the cob.
For the sweet, I'd like to at least try detasseling, and with the crossed seed run the soak method of seed selection to plant the sugary enhanced kernels in rows together. The un-plumped kernels could be planted in their own row(s) and detasseled again, or not.
I'm just curious what kind of issues or problems I'll be likely to encounter.
I also read you should grow out for a couple of seasons before starting to make selections. That kind of makes sense to mix the varieties well, but if something is either really good or very poor I'd think it would be good to either capitalize on it or eliminate it right off.
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Post by Carol Deppe on Nov 6, 2014 23:27:48 GMT -5
The reason for not starting your selecting in the F1 is that the F1 plants express only dominant genes. As an example, suppose you had an determinate red-fruit tomato variety and an indeterminate pink tomato variety that you really loved, and crossed them because you wanted a determinate pink-fruited variety. The F1 plants would all be indeterminate and red-fruited simply because those variants are dominant forms of the genes. So if you started selecting in the F1 generation you would discard every single plant and just give up. However, all the genes you need to get the type you want are in the F1 as hidden recessives. If you go to the F2, 1/16 of the plants should express the two recessives together.
Usually when we do a cross we are interested in many different characteristics, and recessive genes will be involved in some of them. So we don't start selecting until the F2 or later, because the F2 is the earliest possible chance for us to see traits associated with recessives. In fact, since genes can also be linked, it can take longer than one generation for crossing over to separate or combine linked genes and generate all possible combinations. So new phenotypes caused by new genetic combinations can keep showing up in further generations after a cross, as long as you didn't discard all those genes first before they had a chance.
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Post by jondear on Nov 7, 2014 12:14:20 GMT -5
My thought proccess was that I'm using an op mother vs. a highly inbred line and likely more than one hybrid for the pollen donor. But I'm here to learn from you people with experience... Would the same rules about population size still hold water for the f1 generation? I'll assume it does unless someone here says I can get away with 50ish cobs or some other number. I really appreciate the help and information I've been getting here
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Post by Joseph Lofthouse on Nov 8, 2014 2:42:03 GMT -5
For the sweet, I'd like to at least try detasseling, and with the crossed seed run the soak method of seed selection to plant the sugary enhanced kernels in rows together. The un-plumped kernels could be planted in their own row(s) and detasseled again, or not. I am no longer recommending the soak-method for selecting sugary enhanced sweet corn seeds. Germination rates really suffer. I speculate that is due to the seeds absorbing water so rapidly that the embryo is damaged. I have been toying with the idea of using moistened vermiculite as the method of adding moisture to the kernels. Also been toying with the idea of treating the seeds as sprouts, by rinsing with water 2X per day... I wonder if either method, or others, would slow the uptake of water enough that the seed retained viability while still swelling sufficiently to differentiate the se from the su.
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Post by reed on Nov 8, 2014 6:01:32 GMT -5
jondear, I'm working on a similar project, although mine keeps evolving with every new thing I learn here. I acquired over twenty different kinds of su and se corns with the idea of making a sweet cornbread corn. Researching that is how I discovered this forum. I know know that probably isn't possible and don't think it is even my goal anymore. Anyway, I'm curious how many varieties and how many total plants do you plan to start out with on your project?
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Post by jondear on Nov 8, 2014 14:50:42 GMT -5
Re the soak method... I have 4 round dehydrator trays from a dehydrator that died this fall. I figured I'd repurpose them for seed drying but could easily use them like a sprouter. They are much larger than the sprouter I use for salad sprouts. It's worth a shot to try screening for se kernels this way. I've read about people pre-sprouting corn seed and planting it just as the first few roots emerged. I have no experience trying it, I usually just wait for the soil to warm, but it might get those of us short growing seasons a jump on planting. I suppose one could mark the earlier drying kernels on a cob with a sharpie if time allowed at dry down.
Reed, I don't really know for sure how many varieties I'll plant, I'm mostly just looking for good overlap in pollination. I was thinking 3 or 4 SE hybrids for both pollination and eating. I don't know if having more fathers is better or not. That's why I'm asking a lot of questions here. I will do as Joseph recommended by planting the Ashworth twice. I really need to keep the population as small as I can so I have room for our other crops. We don't buy many vegetables the whole year, we are almost there, but obviously we aren't able to grow tropical foods like citrus or bananas here in Maine. At this time I'd be willing to devote ~600 to 700 square feet to a breeding project like this. I may have to plant seed from multiple years or incorporate some new seed to keep enough variability in the mix. I've been working my uncle very hard for use of ~ an acre to use for things like this, but he is reluctant to let me plow it up at this time. I'm hopeful he's warming up to the idea, but I have not got the go ahead quite yet.
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Post by jondear on Dec 24, 2014 13:44:36 GMT -5
Well I've ordered and received some corn. This is the plan.
Ashworth and Double Standard will be the mother plants. For fathers I'm going with Spring Treat Sugar Buns Bon Appetit Sugar Pearl Navajo Chippewa
Next year I will get an ounce or two of "Who Gets Kissed" to add to the population along with whatever tickles my fancy at seed ordering time.
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Post by jondear on Jan 12, 2015 22:46:34 GMT -5
Came up with "Treaty of Paris" for the name.
Given I haven't planted a seed yet I kind of have the cart before the horse but, I wanted to name it.
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Post by 12540dumont on Jan 14, 2015 14:02:25 GMT -5
Jon, I never trust corn that I haven't planted 200 seeds of. If I can only plant 100, I do do a line saving.
For example, I could only get 100 seeds of Florianni through some stupid SSE rules. So I planted all 100 seeds. The following year I ordered another 100 seeds. I planted 150 of mine and 50 of the new order. The following year I also planted 150 of mine and the rest of the 50. So now in the fridge I have 3 crops of Florianni, and if I plant them again, I'll take some out of each jar. I think Florianni has enough bottlenecks and would love it if I could get 500 seeds from Italy of this same corn. Then I'd feel like I had gotten everything this corn had to offer.
As it is, it's not quite as productive as I would like, but the flavor is spot on.
I spoke to the corn advisor from the USDA who told me that crops like corn lose something when you pick them up and move them, so the more plants the better. He also cautioned me against saving only big fat plump seeds. He preferred that I save a couple of seeds from each cob. Takes more time.
As the drought has not improved, I'm not planting any sweet corn this year and saving all my corn plot for dry corn:
Huhni (a 60 day corn) Righetta Bianca Ottofile (65 days to silk) Cherokee Squaw 135 days. white and purple kernels. Great for cornmeal. Kaanga Ma (This is a Maori white corn).
This year, I'll plant all these corns at one time and they are significantly different in their silk times. I'm going to plant very early, maybe April 4 to capitalize on the soil moisture. I also have less corn ear worm, the earlier I plant.
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Post by reed on Jan 14, 2015 21:43:47 GMT -5
I'm guessing you mean when you plant in a widely varied geography? If so it goes right along with an old paper I found from I think, a university in Illinois that said something to the effect that "no corn performs the same in one location as it does in another". Makes me wonder too about the kid I met who grew what he said was Painted Mountain and it got 5 - 6 feet tall but Carol said it couldn't have been Painted Mountain. Maybe Painted Mountain in Indiana isn't the same as in Colorado or Oregon, I hope to find out next year. jondear, I am also going on the theory that the more kinds you have the less total plants you might get by with. For example if you have your two detasseled mothers pollinated by twenty instead of five fathers the result will have more diversity and resilience even if you can't have as many to choose next years seed from.
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Post by jondear on Jan 14, 2015 21:50:34 GMT -5
The very reasons you mention are the same reasons I need some more room...
I grew florinni red a few years ago. It was one of the better looking stands I ever grew. The plants were beautiful but I didn't get an ear that the raccoons or groundhogs didn't completely tear up. I plan on trying some dry corn again this year but plan on fencing around the corn. One can dream about it actually working but the critters will probably get after the corn again. We'll see how it goes.
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