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Post by prairiegarden on Jan 11, 2016 19:50:44 GMT -5
I'm looking for corn that doesn't have to have cozy warm soil before it can be planted, is short season, healthy, excellent flavor and consistently at least two decent sized cobs per plant.
One supplier ( from whom I have bought seed before and found so far to be accurate) says Fishers Earliest can tolerate frost after it's been planted, tillers enthusiastically and the tillers tend to produce an ear on their own, so can produce anywhere up to 5 cobs per plant. They also say they tried removing the tillers and the plants were less happy than those allowed to retain tillers. Several other suppliers say it produces ONE cob per plant and nothing whatever about cold soil tolerance or frost resistance. Both agree very good flavor and 70 days, which is beginning to slide into midseason here, but if the first description is accurate, then it would be worth while playing with. There seem to be two descriptions and everyone is just repeating one or the other. Could the difference simply be that often growers remove the tillers?
Anyone have any first hand knowledge of this variety? Or any others worth looking at? I'm planning on trying Yukon Supreme and Orchard baby this year... had considered Blue Jade but ran across a couple of reviews which were rather less than enthusiastic. I already have a couple Canadian types for the 65-70 day mark which have better sized cobs than those two are likely to have, but more cobs per plant other than popcorn is very intriguing.
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Post by rowan on Jan 11, 2016 21:19:25 GMT -5
I grow Painted mountain and it fits all your criteria. Not only does it make an excellent sweetcorn when picked early and a nice flour corn when mature, it is very quick to ripen after flowering and grows in cooler ground than any other I have tried, and yes, has coped well with an early light frost or two. It tillers very well and when planted not too close will produce two main cobs and most of the tillers will also produce.
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Post by prairiegarden on Jan 11, 2016 21:32:41 GMT -5
fantastic! It's fairly easy to find, just hadn't thought about using it as a sweet corn. Thank you.
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Post by Joseph Lofthouse on Jan 11, 2016 23:22:41 GMT -5
Fisher's Garden Store POB 236 Belgrade, Montana 59714
486-388-6052
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Post by keen101 (Biolumo / Andrew B.) on Jan 12, 2016 0:10:47 GMT -5
I haven't tried fishers, but i have tried Painted Mountain. I'll be honest i haven't had much success with it, grows too short and stubby for me in my climate. However rowan's suggestion of picking any corn early in the milk stage is a great suggestion in my opinion too. In fact one reason i haven't tried growing much sweet corn is i like to grow glassy-type flint corns (often called indian corn) and i find that it works well as a sweet corn when picked right. Plus it has excellent frost tolerance and can even be selectively bred to be even better (some of which I've done with mine).
I think awhile back Joseph had been working on a derivative of Astronomy Domine sweet corn that he was calling Frosty Corn...?
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Post by Joseph Lofthouse on Jan 12, 2016 1:05:33 GMT -5
I think awhile back Joseph had been working on a derivative of Astronomy Domine sweet corn that he was calling Frosty Corn...? Frosty was primarily derived from a cross between sugary enhanced sweet corn and Hopi Pink flour corn. Astronomy Domine may have contributed a bit.
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Post by steev on Jan 12, 2016 1:08:58 GMT -5
Yeah, seeds not known to be still with me or not; the pump-house has mice.
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Post by prairiegarden on Jan 12, 2016 14:51:57 GMT -5
Steev, if you can get rid of the mice, even temporarilly, then pouring a thin trail of bleach around the outside of the building is used as a way to keep mice out of temporary camps ( temporary in that they are on skids rather than foundations, some move almost daily others stay in the same spot for years.) I've used it around my rather bedraggled old house and it's apparently been effective, have had no mice since. Might be worth a try.
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Post by oxbowfarm on Jan 12, 2016 15:59:45 GMT -5
A possibility is that there are different strains of Fisher's Earliest. OP corns will always diverge into strains if grown out consistently in multiple locations. So much so that reasonably popular OP corns can be called the same thing but essentially be different varieities. This is certainly true of the most common OP cornbelt dents like Reid's Yellow, Bloody Butcher, or Lancaster Surecrop. I'd ask the seed house with your preferred description where they get their seed from. Possibly they grow it out themselves.
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