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Post by Carol Deppe on Nov 4, 2014 15:38:56 GMT -5
Ahhh. Interesting. I've never had anything with glumes as extended as that show up in my corn varieties. But an occasional ear has come close with glumes that extend all the way up the sides, but not over the tops of the kernels.
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Post by Carol Deppe on Nov 4, 2014 15:16:06 GMT -5
Mickt--I wouldn't expect the nuclear genes of three plants fused at the base to be able to migrate from one plant to another. However, sometimes part of the phenotype of a plant is associated with viruses or other microorganisms it is carrying. One of the recent realizations in plant genetics and breeding is that associated microorganisms matter way more than we realized, and are sometimes responsible for drought tolerance, disease resistance, and other characteristics that we had long assumed were all determined by the genes of the plant itself. If the trait you're looking at is determined by these microorganisms, it's quite possible that they could migrate from one variety/plant to another through the fused base.
Another thing that we've been learning recently is that the control status of genes can often be inherited. So, for example, two lines might have the same genes for a trait, but control genes might be heritably turned on more in one than in the other, giving different phenotypes. I suspect that changes in control gene status account for why we often see adaptation of varieties to our specific growing conditions when we save our own seed in just a few years and with relatively modest numbers of plants--times and numbers really too small for new mutations or even much in the way of recombination to account for it.(In any genetic control system with positive feedback loops, once a gene is turned on or off it stays that way, and some such situations persist through mitotic and even meiotic division. It takes some external trigger to reset things. I suspect extreme cold, heat, or drought conditions might serve to reset things and give rise to at least some plants that seem to have suddenly adapted to the new condition. So plants can have ways of adapting that are not quite so permanent and slow-evolving as just through changes in nuclear genes.) It's still too early to say exactly where heritable control status fits into what we see and what happens when we breed plants. However, I could imagine that if three different fused plants had different control statuses for a gene, that they might be able to influence each other and make a change in the phenotype you're seeing.
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Post by Carol Deppe on Nov 4, 2014 14:32:41 GMT -5
blueadzuki--I've never grown or even seen any podcorn in person, so don't know. But your idea makes sense.
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Post by Carol Deppe on Nov 4, 2014 12:07:03 GMT -5
Reed--Sweet corns seem to be variants of flints or dents. Modern sweet corn lines seem to be against a dent background, but a dent with a bit more flint than flour. If they cross with a true flour type they can introduce both dent and/or flint types as contamination. I've only grown one gourdseed corn; it was a flour type with a long narrow kernel and a very tiny attachment to the ear.
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Post by Carol Deppe on Nov 4, 2014 11:53:03 GMT -5
I've noticed that papery wrapping. It surrounds just the base of kernels of most ears of most varieties. But occasionally it actually extends almost all the way to the top of the kernels and really uglifies the ears. I cull those types of ears. Delicious is primary, but beauty also matters. I usually winnow my corn before I grind it by pouring it through the airflow from a fan. With most varieties, that papery stuff is a minor component and most separates from the kernel. In some cases when I'm being really fussy I rub the corn kernels between my hands, then blow away all the paper before I parch. But to make it as a parching corn with me the variety needs to have little of that paper, and what it has needs to come off in the ordinary process of shelling and winnowing.
With respect to grinding, even an impact grinder can take a fair amount of that papery stuff. Sometimes I have only unwinnowed corn around and it has been raining for days, so I can't winnow it. In that case, I might just shake the corn in a bowl or bucket to let most of the "debris" migrate to the bottom, then take a few cups off the top to grind. Those few cups have, I'd say, about 3/4 of the debris removed, but retain the rest. That much debris doesn't affect the quality of the meal or flour enough to notice in baking, but I do notice it in polenta, and consider it unacceptable in parched corn. That amount of debris has never bothered my impact mill (a Whispermill aka GrainMaster). What doesn't work is parching corn and then using an impact mill. I clogged mine both times I tried that. However, you can grind a true flour corn, parched or raw, in a coffee mill or many kinds of blenders.
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Post by Carol Deppe on Nov 4, 2014 6:03:02 GMT -5
When you choose which plant to use as the mother you are choosing which cytoplasm to preserve in your new variety. If one variety is more cold-hardy or heat-tolerant or disease resistant that inclines me towards preserving its cytoplasm, since those characteristics might be cytoplasmically inherited. If one cytoplasm is common I prefer to preserve the other. Sometimes I use as female whatever is easiest. If I'm crossing a white corn to a black it is a lot easier to use the white as female parent and just pick out all the black kernels instead of bothering to detassel. Lots of times, though, I simply plant alternating rows of the desired parents, don't detassel, and let them all mix it up together over the generations.
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Post by Carol Deppe on Nov 4, 2014 5:28:47 GMT -5
Reed--Flour corn cobs are often somewhat hollow/flexible. So maybe the fact that that is a characteristic of your best parching/tasting ears is because those have more flour type. Also, beyond being a flour corn and of the right colors, other details affect the culinary quality of a parching corn. Some corns have kernels with big wide woody attachments to the cob that are unpalatable when the corn is merely parched and eaten rather than ground. In the best parching corns the kernels have relatively small attachments to the ear. Generally speaking, they are easy to shell. In the selecting for good parching type in 'Parching Magenta' and 'Parching Red Supai' I actually hand tested every cob (of thousands) for ease of shelling and culled out those that were too difficult before running them through the sheller. By doing so I probably selected both for ease of shelling and small seed attachments.
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Post by Carol Deppe on Oct 31, 2014 12:43:36 GMT -5
Can some of you oldtimers on this forum tell me how I post pictures?
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Post by Carol Deppe on Oct 31, 2014 12:40:33 GMT -5
I don't think nixtamalizing would remove much oil from the germ. It's boiling in alkali, which I wouldn't expect to dissolve oil. different varieties have different amounts of oil, too. And more oil might make the hominy actually taste better. After all, we invariably add some fat or oil of some sort to cornbread and/or slather some on top because it tastes better with more fat/oil than is found in most corns naturally.
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Post by Carol Deppe on Oct 31, 2014 11:05:54 GMT -5
Interesting corns, Blueadzuki! But I think all those tiny grains would drive me nuts. I wonder what they would be like nixtamalized and just served whole. Sort of like rice-sized hominy.
Reed--Actually, everything that is heritable is coming from both sides of the cross except characteristics that might be associated with the cytoplasm. but those actually sometimes can matter. If one variety is more vigorous or cold hardy or disease resistant, I like to use that as the female parents since the mitochondria could be involved in it. (Some mitochondrial genes are located in the nucleus, but some are actually in the mitochondriaal DNA and are maternally inherited.) Sometimes I start a corn project by detasseling one variety with alternating rows of varieties. But more often I don't. I just plant alternating rows and keep everything, and let the genes all mix together over the generations, with both cytoplasms represented. If one is better in my situation it will end up being selected for automatically. The second generation of my project I plant densely, then just keep all the biggest plants when thinning. Those are likely to be nearly all hybrids. So I can pretty much get nearly all hybrids to plant the second year without the mess of detasseling. If any plant that is purely one variety is so vigorous it matches the hybrids, it deserves to be overrepresented in the new variety anyway, I figure.
With respect to the varieties mentioned in my article--That 'Parching Red Supai' sold by Seeds of Change has apparently been all crossed up. The pics in their catalog actually show one in the three ears as seriously dent, meaning that nobody involved seems to realize what the corn is supposed to be like. And elsewhere on this forum are some pics of 'Parching Red Supai' that show multicolored ears. So I wouldn't bother getting that corn from them. However, that variety is just too good to not have available. And I put a couple quarts into long-term frozen storage when I gave Seeds of Change the parching-reselected material they introduced. Accordingly, I've arranged with with a grower to grow the corn out in isolation next year. If all goes well I should be able to make a good line of 'Parching Red Supai' available again in 2016.
I think any corn that is growing 6-8' isn't pure Painted Mountain. Beside the point, though, if it is the kind of corn you want and it does well for you.
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Post by Carol Deppe on Oct 31, 2014 10:28:49 GMT -5
Reed--I class corns as flint, flour, or dent based on the proportions of flinty and floury endosperm, not on the shape of the kernel. It's a practical classification, because that proportion is what determines how I can use the corn. As you note, some varieties with a generous mix of both types of endosperm have a dent in them and some don't. As best I can tell, it has to do with how the flint is arranged. If it is arranged in a tube around the central floury core with the floury core running all the way to the top of the kernel, you end up with a dent. This is because the floury endosperm contracts more than the flint as they dry out. If, however, a good bit of the flint runs across the top of the kernel, the kernel is not going to show a dent.
I like pure flints because only very pure flints can be used to make fast cooking polenta that actually tastes cooked. Or johnny cakes that taste cooked. I also like pure flour types because I can use them to make cakes, sweetbreads, gravy, (and if they are the right colors) for parching. The dents only make good polenta if you use very laborious methods (for example, simmer with stirring 45 minutes, then pour in pan and bake an hour). Or if you mechanically separate out the flinty part and use just that. (Sifting. But you never get rid of all the flour.) The Italian "flint" polenta corns I've examined are all dents according to my classification.
Blueadzuki--I've also read that story about the origin of dents. Maybe that is the history of the midwestern cornbelt dents. However, Indians have had their own dents for a long time before that. Oaxacan Green Dent, for example, which traditionally supposedly was used to make green tortillas. (And has a distinctie dent. It has a yellow endosperm and black/blue aleurone. The most vivid green kernels are heterozygous black (blue) aleurone over yellow endosperm.) And many SW corns native American corns were dents, at least by my classification of having a good bit of both flint and flour endosperms. In most of them, the arrangement of the two types doesn't give you a dent most of the time. Most corns used to make tortillas seem to be these dent types. There is both a good bit of flour and some grit to a good tortilla. Of course, the SW Indians also had lots of pure flour corns. As best I can figure out from Buffalo Bird Woman's garden, she grew flint corns and flour corns, but not dents. At least she referred to them as "hard" and "soft", and praised the flavor of the "hard" but said it was a lot more difficult to grind.
Joseph--I agree that what is taught students as Mendelian genetics is simplistic. In breeding plants, so many of the characteristics we care about are influences by so many genes we never see anything resembling Mendel when we do crosses. Size of fruit, yield, and vigor are virtually always multigenic characteristics in crosses and don't show classical segregation. For quantitative characteristics, the old model of "blood" works better than the Mendelian model with the exception that it doesn't account for dominance, especially in the first generation. That is presumably why humans were very effective deliberate plant breeders long before any knowledge of Mendelian genetics. They had a concept of genetics that was all wrong, but practically speaking, it mostly worked most of the time when it came to plant and animal breeding. I'm talking about the ancient belief that what was inherited from parent to offspring was in the blood, and just mixed together in all possible proportions in offspring. (As opposed to be unitary.) (This mistaken concept is where the expressions "pure blood", "half blood" etc. come from.) If you have dozens of genes affecting a trait, beyond the F1, that's more or less what things look like. If you cross a squash with big fruits to one with small fruits and go to the F2, you see a smear of every possible size, with most being between the two parents.
In the lab you actually have to work pretty hard to find a mutation with a consistent enough expression to give you clean "Mendelian" segregation classes. Most mutations are "leaky". (Geneticists use the words "variable penetrance" and "variable expressivity" when talking about it in print, and "leaky" when talking informally, especially about biochemical mutants.) Then even if you have some simple Mendelian genes that have complete penetrance, they may not segregate normally in crosses to another variety unless the two varieties are closely related and share the same genetic background. (So all the Drosophila genetics is done with one particular highly inbred line. If you go and cross it to some line from the wild, you might see messed up segregation ratios. In practical plant breeding most of our crosses are between lines that are not very closely related. So even when we are dealing with completely penetrant mutant genes, there can be all kinds of genetic anomilies that screw up segregation patterns. Chromosomal inversions in gene order between the two varieties, for example. And segregation distorters can crop up in crosses. ie genes that actually influence the segregation or recovering of chromosomes in their own favor. But basically, if we want the characteristics of two different varieties in a new variety, we just cross them. Then either backcross or go to an F2 and start selecting what we want. Practically speaking, it's pretty straightforward. Sometimes we know something about the genetics of some of the characteristics we care about; often we don't.
I think the cornbelt dents were selected above all for yield for animal feeds and factories. And the European settlers who started doing that were basically just using corn to make wet batter cornbread (which works with any corn) and for animal feed. They didn't really have the sophistication the Indians had with respect to many different corns types and flavors and many different uses. Indians used mostly true flints and true flours, because they were eating the corn themselves, and the flavors and cooking characteristics mattered more than just yield.
Flints aren't so hard that they damage metal equipment. Flours definitely are more vulnerable to insects.
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Post by Carol Deppe on Oct 18, 2014 21:33:06 GMT -5
Blueadzuki--I still can't really see the pattern you are talking about on the first pic. If it is like scales, I may not have seen it before. The tiny corns are fun to look at. The kernels aren't showing up well enough for me to be able to tell much of anything about them. And since I don't know how many ears they came from, I can't tell if the red/pink color is pericarp or aleurone.
In the last pic kernels are pretty clear. The purple/lavender stipling is caused by the black aleurone color, which, in some of these kernels, is modified to red by the red-aleurone gene. Red aleurone is supposedly recessive, but I think it is closer to codominant, with heterozygotes often looking redish purple. Heterozygous black can look black, blue, or purple all by itself. When black or red aleurone pigment is present it can express in many ways, depending upon other modifying genes, with just a uniform pale, a mosaic pattern, or this sort of stipling being among of the possibilities. Some of the kernels show yellowish flinty endosperm (probably heterozygous for yellow), and some white endosperm. These kernels are a good illustration of the fact that red-aleurone over yellow flinty endosperm looks brown. (There are other ways to look brown. There is a pericarp brown, for example.)
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Post by Carol Deppe on Oct 16, 2014 10:50:01 GMT -5
Joseph--That's great news. A corn that could puff like rice would be just so fantastic.
Blueadzuki--I can't see the pattern you're asking about in the pic. However, I sometimes see an etched feathery pattern on the kernels of some ears that seems associated with the pericarp layer, which might be what you mean. Whether it is genetic or some environmental result or a result of handling I have not been able to figure out.
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Post by Carol Deppe on Oct 15, 2014 14:32:14 GMT -5
We don't have to irrigate Hannan Popbean here in maritime Oregon because we plant in March, when the ground is quite moist from winter rains, and additional rains occur regularly through April. And we harvest it in late July, and the residual soil moisture is vanishing just about the same time as the plants are drying. Whether you have to water is going to depend upon your weather patterns. I only say it can be grown without irrigation under my weather patterns, not anywhere. And it can. I have never irrigated it.
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Post by Carol Deppe on Oct 15, 2014 14:24:15 GMT -5
Philip--The popbeans only expand just a little and crack open when parched/popped. After successful popping they taste good and have a flavor and texture like a nut. So you popped them just fine. Selecting seeds from plants that produce mostly one-seeded pods is effective in increasing the proportion of 1-seeded pods (and big seeds). But selecting seeds from one-seeded pods versus 2-seeded pods on the same plant should not make any difference, as it is the mother plant that controls the number of seeds/pod, not the genes in those seeds. Most plants in the variety produce mostly 1-seeded pods, but nearly every such plant produces a few 2-seeded pods too.
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