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Post by maisazzurro on Jan 20, 2016 12:43:24 GMT -5
I have come across many post on here dealing with corn genetics of kernel color (pericarp, aluerone, endosperm). I am curious about the colors of reproductive organs, leaves, stalks. From what I think I know, a corn with a red cob comes mainly from maternal material. I have also seen Photos of Alan Kapular's 'Martian Jewels' corn. It appears as a white corn with a purple husk. From what I think I know white is recessive to yellow. How is cob color linked to kernel color? Are these genes on different chromosomes? Are there multiple genes involved? I am fascinated by corn with deep purple stalks and husk. I want to know why these plants are purple. I am curious about an all white kernel in a purple husk. Also, what is behind the color of silks? I have blondes, brunette, red heads. I am not going to get into inflorescence yet… Most of the blue corn I get has blonde silk, white cobs, green husk. Is it genetically possible for a blue corn to have brunette silk or a purple husk and cob? I have had a glass gem corn that was mostly blue display some red color on the stem and had brunette silks, but there was also a mix of red and pink kernels. I am just learning about inheritance and genetics in corn and I have many questions. I know my questions are more about aesthetics of the plants, but I grow in urban and suburban yards where it is a hard sell to get people to let me grow corn. It is easy for me to convince others to let me plant my corn when it is "beautiful" compared to the endless fields of dent surrounding us.
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Post by Joseph Lofthouse on Jan 20, 2016 15:10:15 GMT -5
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Post by steev on Jan 20, 2016 20:51:52 GMT -5
Photos one and four are particularly striking.
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Post by maisazzurro on Jan 28, 2016 23:06:12 GMT -5
I absolutely love the black anthers! I have gotten similar results with the painted mountain corn I have grown. Thanks for sharing. I am trying to understand purple corn anthocyanin and spotted corn. I do not see much about spotted corn, such as blue spots on white. I save seeds I see with spots, and even bought a decorative corn from the pumpkin farm to pluck out a white with blue spots to plant. (It grew to a flint with mostly white, blue, purple, and white and spotted purple or blue, no yellow, but a squirrel ate half the cob.) I can see using my purple husks for dyes or stain and possibly added to drink. I also want to understand kernel color on the red cob and husk corn, since, from what I read, the red stalk, leaves, and cob are maternally inherited. I also noticed not all the kernels on a purple plant are red or have red pericarp. I am fascinated by Alan Kapular's Martian Jewel Sweet corn (white kernels in a purple husk/purple plant). I want to figure out color combinations for kernel color with no red pericarp. The all white corn in a purple plant, I find beautiful. Not only beautiful, but tasty, as I do enjoy white flour corn, and I would prefer the Martian Jewel looking corn as a flour instead of sweet. A mostly white flour corn in a purple husk would be ideal for me. The white kernel for posole and tortillas, and the red husk for a dye or stain. Plus, I can have aesthetically pleasing corn in the yard in an urban area, and not just out in the small field. In my head, my multi purpose corn would be flour, short stature (5-6 ft), purple stalks and husks, variation in staminate flower colors. Delicious, nutritious, decorative foliage and flowers (the later is important to convince people I garden for/in their yards to accept corn in their gardens). I wonder if the red husk leaves can stain my tamales when I steam them? I guess I will have to try that next year. I am very glad you guys can share your knowledge with a passionate back yard urban gardener as myself.
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Post by keen101 (Biolumo / Andrew B.) on Jan 29, 2016 1:30:10 GMT -5
I am far from the expert, but i particularly enjoy growing corn that has unusal traits such as high anthocyanin expression (especially in foliage). Pretty much every trait in corn seems to be unlinked from what i've seen either by experience or online. So in theory any combination of traits is possible. However some genes are close to each other genetically that makes it hard to find cases where they are "broken apart". Perhaps someone can explain it more elegantly than i can. I've seen lots of shades of corn pollen/anthers and the parts that cover the anthers (sometimes having different colors). I believe these colors are linked to the shade and combinations that the kernels colors are. I've seen red pollen, pink pollen, salmon/peach colored polen, purple, yellow, (green on teosinte), sometimes all with various shades. Most often i see what i call contrasting traits. Such as dark purple pollen on green corn plants, purple husks with green silks, green husks/plants with red silks, etc. I will try my best to track down the best photos of mine i can find. This year was a poor year for corn, but i got three cobs worth saving. (although i'm pretty sure every year is a bad year for corn in my garden). This was one of the three. Until i went to post this photo i hadn't even noticed that this plant had red silks on a purple cob! How great a find! Woo Hoo! A poor photo, but this plant showed up one year having a purple stripe! Sadly this plant failed to produce many seeds and i believe the trait was lost. However i suspect it may have originated from transposons moving anthocyanin genes around to new areas. "Chinmarked" or striped corn kernels and the spotted kernels you mentioned have transposons. They are an interesting subject to be sure. I also used to have some that had white stripes much like the yellow joseph has shown. again sadly i have lost seed for both those types. Someday i'll track those traits down again. Red pollen/anthers. I believe this was painted mountain a this plant is super short. This photo is not mine. But the first time i planted indian corn this happened to one of my corn plants! All the rest were green! It was a sight to behold. Sadly i lost the photo of mine. Perhaps one day i will try to recreate it. My little friend. In this thread: alanbishop.proboards.com/thread/8586/first-attempt-homemade-chicha-morada, I posted this photo of some deep purple corn water made from boiling my purple corn husks one year. I too have wanted to make purple husk tamales, but i havn't done it yet.
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Post by blueadzuki on Jan 29, 2016 6:37:10 GMT -5
I absolutely love the black anthers! I have gotten similar results with the painted mountain corn I have grown. Thanks for sharing. I am trying to understand purple corn anthocyanin and spotted corn. I do not see much about spotted corn, such as blue spots on white. I save seeds I see with spots, and even bought a decorative corn from the pumpkin farm to pluck out a white with blue spots to plant. (It grew to a flint with mostly white, blue, purple, and white and spotted purple or blue, no yellow, but a squirrel ate half the cob.) I can see using my purple husks for dyes or stain and possibly added to drink. I also want to understand kernel color on the red cob and husk corn, since, from what I read, the red stalk, leaves, and cob are maternally inherited. I also noticed not all the kernels on a purple plant are red or have red pericarp. I am fascinated by Alan Kapular's Martian Jewel Sweet corn (white kernels in a purple husk/purple plant). I want to figure out color combinations for kernel color with no red pericarp. The all white corn in a purple plant, I find beautiful. Not only beautiful, but tasty, as I do enjoy white flour corn, and I would prefer the Martian Jewel looking corn as a flour instead of sweet. A mostly white flour corn in a purple husk would be ideal for me. The white kernel for posole and tortillas, and the red husk for a dye or stain. Plus, I can have aesthetically pleasing corn in the yard in an urban area, and not just out in the small field. In my head, my multi purpose corn would be flour, short stature (5-6 ft), purple stalks and husks, variation in staminate flower colors. Delicious, nutritious, decorative foliage and flowers (the later is important to convince people I garden for/in their yards to accept corn in their gardens). I wonder if the red husk leaves can stain my tamales when I steam them? I guess I will have to try that next year. I am very glad you guys can share your knowledge with a passionate back yard urban gardener as myself. Ah, another lover and saver of stippled corn! we should compare notes come fall (when the Indian corn comes into season, and I theoretically might have some leftovers from what I can find) For what I've been able to work out, stippling comes from genes on something called the R loci. it's a variable does thing (as well as a transposon) so you get a lot of variations from solid white/yellow to light stipple to medium up to self colored (solid whatever the stippling color was) You can also get quite a variation in the delineation of the stipple, some have much "sharper" spots than others. If you are looking for a named corn with spots, Native Seeds has a few. Navajo Robins egg is blue spots on white (and I think it sometimes can have a red pericarp) Taharmuri Rosado can have spots of various colors. There is also some other Native corn that was mentioned in an article here a while back that they are working on bringing a spotted version of back (there are also a LOT of spottled Andeans in Baker Creeks explorer series, but getting those to produce here in the US is very hard).
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Post by maisazzurro on Feb 17, 2016 23:34:08 GMT -5
Ah, another lover and saver of stippled corn! we should compare notes come fall (when the Indian corn comes into season, and I theoretically might have some leftovers from what I can find) For what I've been able to work out, stippling comes from genes on something called the R loci. it's a variable does thing (as well as a transposon) so you get a lot of variations from solid white/yellow to light stipple to medium up to self colored (solid whatever the stippling color was) You can also get quite a variation in the delineation of the stipple, some have much "sharper" spots than others. If you are looking for a named corn with spots, Native Seeds has a few. Navajo Robins egg is blue spots on white (and I think it sometimes can have a red pericarp) Taharmuri Rosado can have spots of various colors. There is also some other Native corn that was mentioned in an article here a while back that they are working on bringing a spotted version of back (there are also a LOT of spottled Andeans in Baker Creeks explorer series, but getting those to produce here in the US is very hard). I might get a membership for the Navajo Robin's egg. I have been debating it for two years. It is the most beautiful besides sacred "inkspot" or rainbow corns. It looks like rain. I like the fact that it is short stature and pretty good drought tolerance. I just feel uneasy a bit about growing something considered sacred for my food. Sort of like getting drunk at a party with Communion wine, you know? The membership might be useful as my sister who is currently studying Botany in Northern Arizona can benefit from their seeds. My spotted seeds come from one I plucked from a multicolored chin stripped ear I got at a pumpkin patch decoration corn and it is a bit glassy and a flint. The other spotted seeds I saved from ears of Painted Mountain corn. I have a preference for flour corn, as it is very tasty and goes well as an alternative to wheat flour for me, it is easy and fine to grind in a hand grinder, and I find it nice for nixtamal. (I can no longer eat wheat, barley, oats, other things similar variations of these anymore.) I definitely do not have enough room or good genetic pool to make a variety of my own. I have also noticed spotted kernels in the "Indian Berries" Popcorn I grew from Baker Creek Heirloom seeds this year. I have photo I can upload later. There were kernels, rice type, with purple speckles. Harder to notice than on the larger kernels of Painted Mountain. Spotted kernels, purple husk and stalk, what a dream corn for me. ha!
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Post by steev on Feb 18, 2016 3:30:20 GMT -5
All food is sacred to somebody, somewhere; it's only agribusiness that has turned food to a commodity, an industrial input, rather than what sustains life; from that which must be honored and respected as the sustainer of life, to that which is a source of corporate profit.
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Post by blueadzuki on Feb 18, 2016 6:23:55 GMT -5
The popcorn sounds like the kind of speckling I refer to as "half tone". That's pretty common on light purple kernels.
Most of my stock has come from selected Indian corn cobs, mostly those from a farm in Pennsylvania that supplies the local supermarkets. Also mostly flint, but I have tracked down a few ears of dent or flour* with a nice stipple too and I MAY have some pop with spots (I say may because most of that material came from ears from a stand that managed to get corn that was some sort of unholy amalgamation of pop flint and dent (with a little sweet thrown in) creating these miniature ears of uncertain nature. The dent and sweet I can separate on sight, but whether a smooth kernel is flint or pop I can't tell without popping it (which would of course destroy it)
But I wouldn't worry about the "sacredness" of the corn. The Dene to whom it is sacred are also growing it to eat, so growing it for that purpose is hardly an act of blasphemy. I can understand your feelings; every now and then I find an ear that I feel such power from I hate to break it up and almost form a devotion to it (tencially there still are one or two upstairs like that this year). But growing as food is what corn is for, no one would fault you for that.
*I go by kernel, not ear so I classify a floury kernel as floury corn even if it's neighbors on the ear were flinty. So technically, most of my flour is flint/flour.
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Post by Joseph Lofthouse on Sept 18, 2016 18:12:29 GMT -5
I posted this photo of some deep purple corn water made from boiling my purple corn husks one year. Seems like a long time to be boiling something.
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Post by sevenmile on Oct 5, 2016 7:36:03 GMT -5
I like to select for "color" in the foliage and husks, but it appears to me that the birds do also, as those cobs with colored husks get pecked apart first. Right at dough stage. Do birds see the color? Husk coverage and thickness appear to be the same as green husked.....maybe it is timing of maturity but I don't think so. My suspicion is they do it for spite..
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Post by walt on Oct 5, 2016 13:40:43 GMT -5
I have not heard of Golden Bantam of Country Gentleman corn being called sacred. But my grandmother and my mother grew them for their families to eat, and I grew them for myself and my children to eat. I took seed from them to Africa in the Peace Corp. My daughter learned to cross corn using them. What could be more sacred?
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Post by jondear on Oct 5, 2016 16:22:58 GMT -5
I like to select for "color" in the foliage and husks, but it appears to me that the birds do also, as those cobs with colored husks get pecked apart first. Right at dough stage. Do birds see the color? Husk coverage and thickness appear to be the same as green husked.....maybe it is timing of maturity but I don't think so. My suspicion is they do it for spite.. I had issues with birds in my dry corn this year... They rip open the top of a few cobs, and I'd pick it, hoping to get seed... A few days later, more bird damage would appear. My girlfriend said I should husk back the damaged ear and leave it on the stock. It seems to have worked they ate that sacrificial ear and have left the other ears alone, so far, at least.
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