Thoughts on My Corn Breeding Project (Synergistic?)
Nov 2, 2017 13:18:19 GMT -5
philagardener and oldmobie like this
Post by paddymc on Nov 2, 2017 13:18:19 GMT -5
Hi all! I'm a long time lurker here (I mostly participate in more tomato specific forums). Breeding tomatoes has been my long term hobby, but I'm feeling restless, and in that spirit, I've decided to
plunge into the (much, much) more complex world of corn breeding. It has me very excited, and more than a bit confused. Some deep reading here has helped quite a bit.
The idea in a nutshell - I've been growing Mirai 308 BC and 315 BC for quite a while. Maybe I just have a sweet tooth, but me and my wife really like it. As a synergistic corn, it has much better corn flavor than straight Sh2's, while still having quite a boost in sugar. The long term goal is to create a multi-color, "sweet but corn-ey" corn well adapted to my local growing conditions.
Is a synergistic version even a possibility? Or is the su/su se/se sh2/sh2 genotype (75% homozygous Su and SE with 25% homozygous Sh2 kernels) only achievable in an F1 hybrid?
Here's where I'm at right now - in 2016 I grew a 600 plant stand of 50% Mirai 308 and 50% Mirai 315. I planted 4 small (10 plant each) blocks of Zola's Rose and Blue Jade in the middle of the Mirai and (mostly) detassled the Zola's and Blue Jade. I was late to the party on detasseling one plant of the Zola's Rose and two of the Blue Jade. So in effect I ended up saving seed from Zola's Rose x Mirai, Blue Jade x Mirai, and I found 12 ears of Mirai that showed some red and blue kernels, which had been pollinated by the ZR and BJ. I dried these ears and saved only the colored kernels (the one's I knew definitively were crossed). This year I planted a 400 plant seed production bed in 8 plant blocks (interplanted with squash and melons) Here’s what the blocks looked like --
Mirai 301 F1, (Zola’s x Mirai) F1, (Mirai x Zola’s or Blue Jade) F1, (Blue Jade x Mirai) F1
Mirai 301 F1, (Zola’s x Mirai) F1, (Mirai x Zola’s or Blue Jade) F1, (Blue Jade x Mirai) F1
The Mirai 301’s were detassled, the rest were allowed to freely cross pollinate. The idea was that there would be quite a bit of the original synergistic genetics floating around. I also created a row in the middle of the seed production bed that had 8 plant blocks of the following: LISP Ashworth, Navajo Robin’s Egg (flour), Hopi Turquoise (flour), Fire Pink Calico (flour), Spero’s Sparkler, and Maricopa Sweet. All of these were detassled and pollinated by the Mirai/Zola’s/Blue Jade combos.
Here’s some pictures of this year’s seed production
Separated Seeds
(Blue Jade x Mirai F1) x Open
Blue Jade was an obvious choice for this project. It’s a vigorous, tough little plant with classic “corn-ey” sweet corn taste, and dark navy blue kernels at milk stage (having multi color sweet corn is pretty useless if it doesn’t change color till it’s past fresh eating stage)
Bulk Mirai F1x
These are from the de-tassled Mirai 301’s. I’m not sure if I’ll use them going forward or not,
It was just an “insurance policy” in case having a back cross to the synergistic Mirai seemed
like a good idea (I’d love any thoughts on that).
Mirai F2x
From the 2016 Mirai x Zola’s Rose or Blue Jade
Maricopa F1x
Maricopa Sweet is sourced from Native Seed Search. It proved to be the most vigorous corn plants I grew (maybe that I’ve ever grown?) Huge, thick, tall stalks that germinated and grew fast. It tasted better than I expected as well - not super sweet, but sweet enough with good, slightly “grassy” corn flavor. It definitely has a place in this project going forward.
Zola’s F2x
Zola’s Rose from J and L Gardens was another obvious inclusion. Not only is it red at milk stage, but it’s also pretty tasty (very sweet). I think it’s a straight Sh2 judging by sweetness and extremely shrunken kernels. Grows well in my climate (my garden and J and L gardens are at similar altitudes).
jandlgardens.com/xencart/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=65&products_id=419
LISP F1x
LISP Ashworth was included to boost the early season potential and because it has great old fashioned taste.
(Sparkler F1)x F1
Jonathan Spero’s Sparkler was another one I had in my collection that I’ve grown and liked, and bring another boost in Sugary Enhanced genetic diversity.
Hopi Turquoise F1x
What can I say, I thought it was really, really pretty. And it seems to grow well here. The link is to Baker Creek, but my seed source was Sandhill Preservation.
Navajo Robin’s Egg F1x
If I could grow sweet corn that looked exactly like this picture, I’d be a super happy man.
Barring that, it’s another super pretty corn that seems not to care too much about how
great the soil is, or need much water - which could be good long term.
The floury kernels I separated out from all of the sweet corn ears.
The basic plan for this coming season is as follows; 1500 plants worth of all of the non flour seeds openly cross pollinating. The flour seeds (Hopi Turquoise, Navajo Robin’s Egg) in their own bed at another plot well out of cross pollination range. Have separated out the sweet (wrinkled) seeds from the floury ones, but haven’t decided any seed selection criteria from there.
I would then field check (ie eat the tips off of) and mark the best tasting ears in the all sweet (non flour) plot for seed saving. One of my main goals for this project is to select toward prime eating while raw (one of the things I like best about Mirai is how good it is raw). This has the extra advantage of not cooking away the color out of the kernels. So in field tasting seems like a good selection strategy (unless I’m missing something).
The flour plot would freely cross and I would then save any sweet corn (wrinkled) seeds from those ears for re-introduction to the general population in 2019. Is there any reason not to do it this way? It seems like a good shortcut to removing as much of the floury kernel genetics as possible early in the process. But maybe I’m losing too much other beneficial diversity?
It would be cool if there was some sort of shortcut su/su se/se sh2/sh2 kernel identification test analogous to Joseph’s SE+ soak and squeeze test. I’ve got 80 kernels worth of last year’s Mirai soaking right now to see what it does, but so far no obvious results.
Other ideas I’m considering right now is tasting tillers to see if I can capture Blue Jade’s sugar-cane like tillers (see this thread - alanbishop.proboards.com/thread/5583/blue-jade-corn-sugarcane)
I’m also considering some additional corn genetics, particularly some high beta carotene, orange endosperm lines (I too like the taste of Beta Carotene, my squash can never be dark enough). I’m also considering additional sweet corn lines in a few categories:
1) Old school corn taste and plant vigour. Maybe Orchard Baby and Buhl (the town of Buhl is only an hour away from me, so some local adaption wouldn’t hurt) as well as Double Red, Sunshine Sweet and Aunt Mary’s Sweet.
2) SE+ lines in case the synergistic thing just turns out to be impossible. The option to bring in more SE+ and chase that (with it’s easily individual kernel identification) could be great. I’m thinking about Brocade TSW, Incredible, and Bodacious.
3) Gourmet Sweet XTH1673 Sh2 for the same reason as the SE+ lines. In case down the line it seems like a good idea to have a back cross to a pure Sh2. This one apparently has good cold soil emergence.
I’d really love any input or advice from the vastly experienced corn breeders here.
plunge into the (much, much) more complex world of corn breeding. It has me very excited, and more than a bit confused. Some deep reading here has helped quite a bit.
The idea in a nutshell - I've been growing Mirai 308 BC and 315 BC for quite a while. Maybe I just have a sweet tooth, but me and my wife really like it. As a synergistic corn, it has much better corn flavor than straight Sh2's, while still having quite a boost in sugar. The long term goal is to create a multi-color, "sweet but corn-ey" corn well adapted to my local growing conditions.
Is a synergistic version even a possibility? Or is the su/su se/se sh2/sh2 genotype (75% homozygous Su and SE with 25% homozygous Sh2 kernels) only achievable in an F1 hybrid?
Here's where I'm at right now - in 2016 I grew a 600 plant stand of 50% Mirai 308 and 50% Mirai 315. I planted 4 small (10 plant each) blocks of Zola's Rose and Blue Jade in the middle of the Mirai and (mostly) detassled the Zola's and Blue Jade. I was late to the party on detasseling one plant of the Zola's Rose and two of the Blue Jade. So in effect I ended up saving seed from Zola's Rose x Mirai, Blue Jade x Mirai, and I found 12 ears of Mirai that showed some red and blue kernels, which had been pollinated by the ZR and BJ. I dried these ears and saved only the colored kernels (the one's I knew definitively were crossed). This year I planted a 400 plant seed production bed in 8 plant blocks (interplanted with squash and melons) Here’s what the blocks looked like --
Mirai 301 F1, (Zola’s x Mirai) F1, (Mirai x Zola’s or Blue Jade) F1, (Blue Jade x Mirai) F1
Mirai 301 F1, (Zola’s x Mirai) F1, (Mirai x Zola’s or Blue Jade) F1, (Blue Jade x Mirai) F1
The Mirai 301’s were detassled, the rest were allowed to freely cross pollinate. The idea was that there would be quite a bit of the original synergistic genetics floating around. I also created a row in the middle of the seed production bed that had 8 plant blocks of the following: LISP Ashworth, Navajo Robin’s Egg (flour), Hopi Turquoise (flour), Fire Pink Calico (flour), Spero’s Sparkler, and Maricopa Sweet. All of these were detassled and pollinated by the Mirai/Zola’s/Blue Jade combos.
Here’s some pictures of this year’s seed production
Separated Seeds
(Blue Jade x Mirai F1) x Open
Blue Jade was an obvious choice for this project. It’s a vigorous, tough little plant with classic “corn-ey” sweet corn taste, and dark navy blue kernels at milk stage (having multi color sweet corn is pretty useless if it doesn’t change color till it’s past fresh eating stage)
Bulk Mirai F1x
These are from the de-tassled Mirai 301’s. I’m not sure if I’ll use them going forward or not,
It was just an “insurance policy” in case having a back cross to the synergistic Mirai seemed
like a good idea (I’d love any thoughts on that).
Mirai F2x
From the 2016 Mirai x Zola’s Rose or Blue Jade
Maricopa F1x
Maricopa Sweet is sourced from Native Seed Search. It proved to be the most vigorous corn plants I grew (maybe that I’ve ever grown?) Huge, thick, tall stalks that germinated and grew fast. It tasted better than I expected as well - not super sweet, but sweet enough with good, slightly “grassy” corn flavor. It definitely has a place in this project going forward.
Zola’s F2x
Zola’s Rose from J and L Gardens was another obvious inclusion. Not only is it red at milk stage, but it’s also pretty tasty (very sweet). I think it’s a straight Sh2 judging by sweetness and extremely shrunken kernels. Grows well in my climate (my garden and J and L gardens are at similar altitudes).
jandlgardens.com/xencart/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=65&products_id=419
LISP F1x
LISP Ashworth was included to boost the early season potential and because it has great old fashioned taste.
(Sparkler F1)x F1
Jonathan Spero’s Sparkler was another one I had in my collection that I’ve grown and liked, and bring another boost in Sugary Enhanced genetic diversity.
Hopi Turquoise F1x
What can I say, I thought it was really, really pretty. And it seems to grow well here. The link is to Baker Creek, but my seed source was Sandhill Preservation.
Navajo Robin’s Egg F1x
If I could grow sweet corn that looked exactly like this picture, I’d be a super happy man.
Barring that, it’s another super pretty corn that seems not to care too much about how
great the soil is, or need much water - which could be good long term.
The floury kernels I separated out from all of the sweet corn ears.
The basic plan for this coming season is as follows; 1500 plants worth of all of the non flour seeds openly cross pollinating. The flour seeds (Hopi Turquoise, Navajo Robin’s Egg) in their own bed at another plot well out of cross pollination range. Have separated out the sweet (wrinkled) seeds from the floury ones, but haven’t decided any seed selection criteria from there.
I would then field check (ie eat the tips off of) and mark the best tasting ears in the all sweet (non flour) plot for seed saving. One of my main goals for this project is to select toward prime eating while raw (one of the things I like best about Mirai is how good it is raw). This has the extra advantage of not cooking away the color out of the kernels. So in field tasting seems like a good selection strategy (unless I’m missing something).
The flour plot would freely cross and I would then save any sweet corn (wrinkled) seeds from those ears for re-introduction to the general population in 2019. Is there any reason not to do it this way? It seems like a good shortcut to removing as much of the floury kernel genetics as possible early in the process. But maybe I’m losing too much other beneficial diversity?
It would be cool if there was some sort of shortcut su/su se/se sh2/sh2 kernel identification test analogous to Joseph’s SE+ soak and squeeze test. I’ve got 80 kernels worth of last year’s Mirai soaking right now to see what it does, but so far no obvious results.
Other ideas I’m considering right now is tasting tillers to see if I can capture Blue Jade’s sugar-cane like tillers (see this thread - alanbishop.proboards.com/thread/5583/blue-jade-corn-sugarcane)
I’m also considering some additional corn genetics, particularly some high beta carotene, orange endosperm lines (I too like the taste of Beta Carotene, my squash can never be dark enough). I’m also considering additional sweet corn lines in a few categories:
1) Old school corn taste and plant vigour. Maybe Orchard Baby and Buhl (the town of Buhl is only an hour away from me, so some local adaption wouldn’t hurt) as well as Double Red, Sunshine Sweet and Aunt Mary’s Sweet.
2) SE+ lines in case the synergistic thing just turns out to be impossible. The option to bring in more SE+ and chase that (with it’s easily individual kernel identification) could be great. I’m thinking about Brocade TSW, Incredible, and Bodacious.
3) Gourmet Sweet XTH1673 Sh2 for the same reason as the SE+ lines. In case down the line it seems like a good idea to have a back cross to a pure Sh2. This one apparently has good cold soil emergence.
I’d really love any input or advice from the vastly experienced corn breeders here.