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Post by Walk on Jan 7, 2015 17:24:50 GMT -5
I did a personal message to Carol Deppe to ask her this but since I haven't heard back from her I thought it would be good to get input from the larger group.
I bought some Cascade Ruby Gold corn seed from Adaptive Seeds but was wondering if I should also get a packet from Carol to make sure that I'm starting with enough genetic diversity? I only have room for 200 plants. I got 1/2# of seed so far and sorted out the nicest looking kernels for planting. Maybe that's enough for this trial planting?
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Post by 12540dumont on Jan 8, 2015 11:58:29 GMT -5
Walk, what I had of the Ruby Gold, I sent to Ox. Maybe he has some?
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Post by oxbowfarm on Jan 11, 2015 17:22:31 GMT -5
I can look, I don't grow the Cascade Series per se anymore. It is one of the main parents of my flint, but I've crossed it with several other things in my flint population. My issues with the Cascade Series, and with the parents of the Cascade Series, which are Abenaki/Roy's Calais and Byron, is the very mediocre stalk quality and fairly low disease resistance. Particularly to Northern Leaf Blight. A great aspect of flint is the freeze and mold tolerance of the grain in late fall, so you can leave them for later harvest while you attend to other things. But this requires the stalks to hold up after the plant dies. If the stalk flops over the ear will quicky start to rot or be found by rodents and birds. For my farming practice I need something stronger than the Cascade corns.
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Post by Walk on Jan 12, 2015 10:22:01 GMT -5
Thanks for the replies. I'm not necessarily looking for seed, just looking for reassurance on the population numbers and wondering about the diversity I'll be starting with - if insufficient then maybe I should get a bit more seed? The stalks on the Roy's Calais have been strong enough here. I can't leave any corn on the plant beyond ripeness due to critters. Last year the ears were getting eaten before fully ripe. Turned out to be mice crawling up the stalks. This year I'll be setting traps in the patch early to try to reduce the number of varmints. Our cat does her part. We've seen her with as many as 7 rodents in one day, at least the ones we saw so there could have been more. I like the earliness of Roy's Calais as we plant extra early before the neighbor's field corn to avoid GMO contamination. I'm hoping that Cascade Ruby Gold will perform at least as well as the Roy's and give a bit better eating quality to the final product, especially in the yellow ears.
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Post by 12540dumont on Jan 12, 2015 14:15:14 GMT -5
Walk, I have plenty of the Maple Gold Seed pm your address. I also have plenty of the Creamcap.
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Post by mickt on Jan 28, 2015 0:38:51 GMT -5
oxbowfarms, what other lines did you add to the flints to enhance stem strength and disease resistance? I have found similar problems with them, despite the fact they are some of my favorites.
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