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Post by templeton on Apr 30, 2015 2:02:25 GMT -5
or maybe it is shinola! I should probably explain this since a lot of readers won't have the cultural background to make sense of it. There is a saying popular in some parts of the U.S. to describe an extremely dumb and aggravating person. "He/she doesn't know shit from shinola". Shinola was a brand of shoe polish. The comparison therefore is someone who does not know shit from shoe polish. From Mike Leathers: "Flim-flam and cow manure both smell sweet at first, but the manure will make your soil richer. " Trans-Pacific thanks for the explanation, Dar. T
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Post by jondear on May 7, 2015 17:11:41 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. I didn't end up with the Sugar Pearl seed this year. Maybe next year. But... I took the temp of the soil today and it was up to 70 at the home garden. So I tilled, formed some ridges and put some seed to the dirt. I planted about 2 1/2 times more seed than I normally do in the rows. This is earlier than I usually plant, but I know a guy that's put in over an acre of SE corn already. Hopefully I have to thin rather than replant more seed. I planted the later corn in the higher warmer ground, and earlier in the lower. Most varieties got a four row block. The mothers got planted right up the middle with blocks on each side. I left room to replant more of the ashworth after this planting get 2 or 3 inches tall, in case the timing is off to silking.
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Post by jondear on May 15, 2015 22:06:53 GMT -5
8 days and I'm just starting to see emergence of everything but spring treat. Favorable weather is in the forecast.
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Post by jondear on May 18, 2015 11:57:30 GMT -5
Spring Treat is coming up now.
But Sugar Buns only had a few plants. I started digging around and couldn't find any more sprouting. Better to eliminate it now than after it produced pollen. Raked it out and replanted more Navajo.
I also made a corporate decision to plant more Double Standard in the spaces I had reserved for the second planting of Ashworth. It had stronger germination. It may be that I bought year old Ashworth seed at the fair last fall. In the previous planting I planted both white and yellow seeds. This batch I only planted white seeds.
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Post by jondear on Jun 27, 2015 13:11:16 GMT -5
Spring Treat is just starting to show tassels at 500 degree days base 50° f since the day they were planted. No sign of other varieties tasseling yet. Both planting of Navajo plants are looking very good. I'm happy with the decision to put in a second planting of it. It helps my chances of having pollen available for the cross.
There is a fair bit of differences in the two mother rows. They all have tillers, some more than others. Some have much wider leaves than others. I already have a few favorite mother plants. If they continue to be vigorous, I suppose I might favor the seeds from them in next years planting.
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Post by jondear on Jul 3, 2015 18:14:55 GMT -5
Yesterday, I noticed Ashworth, some of the Double Standard and the Navajo starting to send up tassels.
Just using this thread as a record of tasseling times for the various varieties I'm using this year. Maybe it could help someone else reading who is interested in crossing corn of their own.
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Post by jondear on Jul 9, 2015 18:53:23 GMT -5
Bon Appetit and Chippewa are just starting to tassel as well as the second planting of Navajo. It's looking like I'll have plenty of pollen to go around.
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Post by jondear on Jul 14, 2015 21:24:08 GMT -5
My lady friend is officially tired of hearing about corn. Lol... As a peace offering, I brought her some corn tassels. She tied them up and hung them to dry on the porch. She makes some pretty cool dry flower arrangements with weeds and stuff.
Spring treat is in silk, Navajo half silk. I've moved/shaken some pollen to the two mother rows already. Noted that a few tillers are forming tassel ears. I'm not going to let any form, but wondering if I should save any seed from those plants at all. Is it a trait likely to show up again if I do?
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Post by steev on Jul 15, 2015 0:00:57 GMT -5
Yeah, women often have a hard time getting "man-games", just as men mostly don't get "women-games"; I mean, hanging out socializing, when you could be working your ass off alone, what's up with that?
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Post by reed on Jul 16, 2015 7:26:31 GMT -5
My lady friend is officially tired of hearing about corn. I had a very similar problem, now I'm having to fight to keep my seeds from ending up in a kettle. Turns out these crazy corn experiments are producing ears far superior than store and markets not to mention weeks sooner. I'v had some of those tassel ears too, I completely detasseled any plant that had them and am eating the ears from the primary stalk. I don't know if it is a genetic thing or environmental but, just in case.
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Post by jondear on Jul 20, 2015 20:17:35 GMT -5
I figure just in case too. They are in the detasseled row...
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Post by jondear on Aug 4, 2015 20:25:27 GMT -5
Saturday August 1st we ate some spring treat. Tasty as usual.
I'm basically out of pollen now. I lost the opportunity to pollinate some third ears that silked a little late on the second planting of double standard.
A couple of different plants came out of the Chippewa corn. The tassels were yellowish instead of red like the others. They were dwarfed compared to the rest. They formed a single ear lower than the others. I'm betting they are inbreds that got selfed instead of hybridized. Even though they likely got pollinated by the hybrids, I plan to save seed from those ears and grow them next year, if for nothing more than to observe what they do.
Another thing that occurred to me this year was that the earliest to silk got pollinated by the earliest to tassel. Next year I might plant a later corn a few weeks before the main crop so the earliest are slowed down to take advantage of the full season. Timing it to run out of pollen before the majority of the silks come on will be the trick. Also an earlier will be planted later than the main crop to try and speed the later plants up some.
At least that's the plan.
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Post by jondear on Aug 24, 2015 21:31:35 GMT -5
Guess who saved some of his first corn seed ever, today?
At least the first 20 or so cobs that were dried down enough so that some wrinkling of some kernals was going on. The forecast is calling for a lot of rain this week, and I didn't want mold issues. There are quite a few left to harvest, but the husks are still mostly green. Pics to come.
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Post by steev on Aug 25, 2015 1:25:29 GMT -5
Yeah; I stripped open the last of Joseph's Cherry Sweet for the same reason last week-end.
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Post by keen101 (Biolumo / Andrew B.) on Aug 25, 2015 3:04:49 GMT -5
Yeah; I stripped open the last of Joseph's Cherry Sweet for the same reason last week-end. How is the cherry sweet corn project coming along? Any pictures?
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