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Post by Carol Deppe on Oct 8, 2014 10:57:28 GMT -5
Joseph, as you suspected might be so, in my experience no bush variety has full flavor. Half-bush types, that is, hybrids heterozygous for the bush gene, though, can be full flavored. Sunshine F1 is full flavored, though a bit moister than some, and it normally does not keep beyond February. However, it is very early, and can actually produce a crop on limited water. In trials of squash under conditions of marginal fertility, weed competition, and only a few buckets of water hand delivered during the season, Nate France and I found that only two varieties performed well enough to be worth growing. And earliness was doubtless part of the picture. Earliness here in Willamette Valley Oregon means that the unirrigated squash gets further before the residual moisture from winter rains runs out. The two squashes that were successful were Sunshine F1 hybrid and Katy Stokes Sugar Meat (available from Nichols Garden Nursery). Sunshine is bright orange-red and about 5 lbs. KSSM is slate gray and about 12 lbs, and is a vine type. It's become popular with market growers here, who often mislabel it "Sweet Meat," as that is a popular name here. It's a size that is easier to sell in markets that real Sweet Meat.
For a dynamite maximally resilient early variety I would cross the two, throw away the half the progeny that are semibushes, and develop a landrace from the rest.
I'm doing a project that is related. I love my reselected line of Sweet Meat, 'Sweet Meat--Oregon Homestead', but it has to be well-grown to mature or to taste good. (Katy Stokes Sugar Meat tastes great even when poorly grown, as does Sunshine F1). I'd like something shorter season and more resilient. I'd also like multiple colors in one variety, as it is just more visually delightful. So I crossed 'Sweet Meat--Oregon Homestead' to 'Sunshine F1', threw away the semibush types in the progeny, and went on from there. (Sunshine F1 is homozygous for red but heterozygous for bush, so you get speckled colored squash, from the cross, and half are semibush (heterozygous for bush)). Next round, I'll just leave everything intact until it's time to plant and throw away squash as they deteriorate to get selection for the good keeping characteristic of the Sweet Meat. Etc. I prefer the up-to-25lb. SM-OH size, but I'd like a new earlier multiple-color variety too, and am willing to sacrifice some size for it. If I can end up with a variety that averages 10-15 lbs. I'll be happy.
In my experience Gold Nugget doesn't measure up in flavor to the varieties I like, and it keeps very poorly. It is early though.
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Post by Carol Deppe on Oct 8, 2014 10:20:06 GMT -5
oldmobie--I would skip the carrots, as they are slow to germinate. Radish germinates faster than just about anything. I'd get a packet of radish seed from a reliable seed company, not use the old seed that came with the kit.
Like steev, I would also suggest a legume such as peas or beans. That way your kid can ask real questions such as whether inoculating matters, actually following the formation of nodules. (I've never found inoculation to actually matter given good garden soils not crapped up by chemical agriculture.) I would suggest dumping the soil that came with the kit and getting "real" soil from an organic veggie garden. Note that Miracle Grow is a non-organic fertilizer. If you are an organic gardener you would want to dump the soil, fertilizer, and advice that came with the kit and substitute your own soil, seeds, and advice.
Corn is also really interesting to follow the root development of. The Indian and many heirloom corns put out their root first, for example, which may grow up to 2" or so before the shoot emerges at all. Modern sweet corn varieties often put up about as much shoot as root more or less simultaneously. I think you accidentally select for the later if you thin too early. But I think the pattern of putting out a very vigorous root first and sending up a shoot only after the root is established can work better in the field. Such corn is probably less vulnerable to getting pulled up by birds. By the time the plants emerge above ground the root is so thoroughly established the plant is difficult to pull up, and the kernel is less likely to pull up when a bird tugs on the shoot. And there is less food remaining in the seed. So the bird has a harder time getting at the kernel reward, and the reward isn't as great if/when it does.
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Post by Carol Deppe on Sept 29, 2014 23:24:21 GMT -5
Here's what's probably going on with the sweet kernels with the opaque skins. Usually, the sweet gene is in a flint or dent corn background. Those generally have a clearish looking paricarp, not the opaque pericarp typical of flour corns. Flint corns have lots of flinty endosperm and little floury endosperm. Very pure floury corns have nearly all floury endosperm and almost no flint at all. The sweet gene, among other things seems to cut down the amount of floury endosperm to nearly nothing in many cases.
If you cross a good flour type to a sweet corn in its typical flint or dent background, a good bit of what segregates in the F2 is kernels with opaque skins that are highly shriveled and in fact have pretty close to no endosperm at all. In those kernels, I think the kernel inherited mostly flour endosperm type and the sweet gene removed most of the floury endosperm. So you end up with an almost empty kernel. There is the opaque seed coat and aleurone typical of a flour corn, and there is a germ. But there is hardly any endosperm at all. Such kernels don't germinate very well or give rise to very vigorous plants.
The kernel that is more wrinkled and purplish on one side than the other is not especially unusual. The wrinkling pattern is variable even in a pure genetic background, and is very variably in a mixed genetic background. The purplish kernel is heterozygous for the black aleurone gene. Depending upon genetic background, heterozygous black can express itself uniformly as any shade all the way from very light blue to pure black or in a mosaic pattern with some parts of the kernel colored and others not. So this kernel is heterozygous for black which happened to express itself as a mosaic pattern on one side of the kernel and not the other.
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Post by Carol Deppe on Sept 29, 2014 23:03:27 GMT -5
flowerweaver, when I last grew out and selected the Supai it gave about 20% pure white ears. The red striped gene is apparently heterozygous in at least some plants and ears. Since the gene is expressed in the pericarp, which is made by the mother plant, ears are usually totally striped or totally white. (Though jumping genes are involved, and one occasionally gets ears of one type with a patch of the other.) Anyway, you can sort the white ears into one lot and make a lovely white flour for pancakes, sweetbreads, cookies, biscuits, and crackers. Then from the red-striped ears you make parching corn, a different flavor of cracker, and a delicious nonsweet bread. If you want more pancakes etc, just save seed from a bigger portion of white ears. If you want more parching corn etc, save more seed from the red-striped eats.
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Post by Carol Deppe on Sept 28, 2014 20:24:28 GMT -5
It's more costly for a plant to produce protein than carbohydrate. Indian and heirloom corns often have higher protein content than modern hybrid dents because the latter have been heavily selected for yield, and lost protein content as a byproduct. I think if you succeed at increasing the protein content your yield will go down enough to make up the difference so that you won't actually improve your protein yield per acre significantly.
I don't quite understand the point of wanting higher oil content. Poultry don't need more vegetable oil in their diets. And breeder for higher oil content also is likely to cost you total yield.
If you want more protein per acre or more balanced protein than corn, try potatoes. They produce both more protein and more carb/acre than corn. The protein to carb balance is almost perfect. Just slightly under perfect. Nothing a few worms can't solve.
I think it can be a mistake to want one food to do everything. It's often not possible. And even if it were, it's not necessarily desirable. If I had a corn that had exactly the protein:Carb content I need with just the right amino acid balance, would I rejoice and forsake all other foods and bind to and just eat that corn for the rest of my life? NO! And if you made me eat just that corn for a while, I would soon be thoroughly sick of it, and would be desperate for almost anything else. I think my quality of life and joy in existing is enhanced by having many foods. I suspect the same is true for the average chicken or duck. When I free range ducks I give them a bucket of corn, a bucket of (soybean meal containing) high protein (20%) broiler chow), and a bucket full of cooked potatoes or squash in winter. They eat more corn when it is colder. Less broiler chow when the day is perfect to bring out lots of big earthworms. Less broiler chow and no corn when they get potatoes. And so on. A smorgasboard. And minimal feed costs and maximally happy ducks.
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Post by Carol Deppe on Sept 28, 2014 19:44:45 GMT -5
Excellent. Good job!
Suggestion. Now try crossing your two best breeding lines to each other and just mass selection after that. Your two lines could be early for two different genetic reasons, so might be able to give rise to something even earlier than both. In addition, the cross would add back a good bit of the genetic heterogeneity you lost in the inbreeding, and that itself can contribute to vigor, yield, and earliness.
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Post by Carol Deppe on Sept 28, 2014 19:36:21 GMT -5
Generally bean crosses do not show up on the crossed up seed. The mother plant makes the seed coats, so it doesn't make any difference what genes for seed coat color are in the seed until the next generation. Likewise, the mother plant makes the pods. When she makes round pods and spaces the seed a certain way they will be one shape. If she make flat pods the seeds will be flat, and so on. In my experience, when you have a legume cross, it never shows up on the seed that first generation.
For example, I grew lots of different pure varieties of garbanzos. Some had purple plants and black seed. Others had green plants and white seed. When I harvested the plants all was fine. All the green plants produced white seed, for example. But when I planted the white seed, for example, I got many pink plants. Whoops. The pink plants all produced black seed.
Phaseolus vulgaris may or may not cross depending upon where you live and what pollinators you have. In some areas of the country people grow different varieties side by side their whole lives and never see a single cross. In my garden, I see about 5-10% crosses with adjacent plants. If you want to produce a good landrace starting with a diverse population with intermixing genes, you might need to help things along by doing some initial crosses. You could hand cross varieties 1 and 2, for example, and 3 and 4. Then cross the two F1 hybrids to give you a population segregation for everything in all four varieties. One simple way to figure out whether you are getting any crosses is to interplant a green-leaved and purple-leaved varieties. The crosses won't show on the seeds. But if there are any crosses you'll get pink plants.
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Post by Carol Deppe on Sept 28, 2014 18:36:53 GMT -5
flowerweaver, right about the flours and dents in the SW and flints in the NE. Those NE flints have way more cold and freeze tolerance than most corn. However, there were SE Indian flint varieties. Most flour corns don't do well in areas other regions. The Mandan flour corns and the Tuscarora (and related Cherokee White flour) are among the few exceptions. Generally, the flour corns grown elsewhere get clobbered by stalk molding, molding in the ear, and insects. And while the Mandans did produce some sweet corn, SW Indians mostly didn't. I think it is because the flour corns are so sweet and delicious in the green stage that there really isn't much need for a sweet corn. Alan Kapuler and I reselected a couple of SW varieties for parching quality a couple decades back. I think one is still carried by Seeds of Change. (Parching Supai, Parching Red Supai, Supai Parch corn, they are a bit irregular about what they call it.) Very nice flavor parched, and makes good gravy or bread too. An advantage of the flour corns is that they are so soft you can grind them up in a coffee grinder of vitamixer or any kind of blender. And for parching varieties, you can just toast them in the microwave or a fry pan or even whole ears over a camp fire. Not so with the dents or flints, which take serious grinding.
That lavender color in your ears is actually a modified black. a lavender kernel has the gene for black aleurone and another gene that turns the black to lavender. When it is in a pure flour type it gives you a great parched corn. All flour corns will parch. But only certain colors taste good parched. Lavender, red, pink, or striped or spots of those colors. The red nubbin is carrying pericarp red, which gives you the other major flavor class of parched corn. But for parched corn, you don't want flint or dent character in there. Flints and dents don't parch; if you try you end up with hard tooth-breaking uncooked chunks.
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Post by Carol Deppe on Sept 28, 2014 17:36:24 GMT -5
Bees love 'Stupice'. That's my favorite early tomato, a full flavored red from Czechoslovakia that is up to about 2" across. It has a protruding style and potato leaf foliage. It's indeterminate. The bees will be all over the 'Stupice' and ignore most of the other tomatoes, even those with protruding styles.
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Post by Carol Deppe on Sept 28, 2014 17:22:41 GMT -5
Corn pollen can travel long distances. That doesn't mean it does given your specific region and wind and weather conditions and topography. It looks to me from your picture and description of being more than a mile from any other corn patch that you have excellent isolation for corn. I don't think you have much to worry about except what you bring in and plant yourself. I'd find out exactly where the corn was grown and what other corn was nearby before I planted those ears. (If you test the corn for GMOs and it tests dirty, that is that. But if it tests clean, it only says there were no GMOs in the 100 kernels you sacrificed and aren't going to plant. There could still be a stray GMO kernel in what you plant.)
It always helps if you keep seed from the inside of your patch instead of the edges. That way if there is any stray pollen it is more likely to be diluted out by pollen produced by your own patch. In Indian and pioneer days, many crops were "self-isolated" by virtue of the fact that they simply were grown in large enough fields of one variety so that nearly all the seed that was saved came from deep inside the patch. It's when we have tiny patches that we have to pay the most attention to isolation from other varieties. And distance and volume both matter. If there are several square miles of corn a block from where you live, you are going to have some contamination. If there is a neighbor with a small corn patch a block from where you live, that may be no problem.
One way I get avoid GMO contamination is that I have focused on early corns. The GMO feed corns, as far as I know, are all fairly late compared with the corns I breed.
Most GMO corns are yellow dents. You can see a cross of a yellow corn onto a white corn, but not onto another yellow or any other color. And not too many of us would want to limit ourselves to growing just white corn. We can see crosses of a flour onto a flint but not usually the reverse. And dents might or might not show up in crosses to flours or flints. There are now also GM0 sweet corns too.
I personally consider hand pollinating impractical when you are growing enough to use as a serious food source or even to maintain a variety if you are keeping the numbers up. Most Indian or heterogeneous corn has heterogeneous relationships between when the baby ears appear and when the first silks emerge. So you might have to bag and check the ear every day for two weeks just to do a single hand pollination. No thanks.
As to what to do with those round glassy kernels...Those are kernels that have mostly flinty instead of mostly floury endosperm. Pure flint corns, far from being grown just if you can't grow other things, are the best for certain purposes. Buffalo Bird Woman thought her "hard white" (flint) was especially delicious, but it was more difficult to grind than the "soft". Pure flints cook well by boiling or steaming. They make great polenta, mush, corn pudding, and johnnycakes. (And wet-batter cornbread.) Pure flour corns are better baked. I use them mostly for cake, for gravy, and for parching corn (when they are the right color types.) (They also make good wet-batter cornbread.) Dent corns don't make good polenta unless you screen and separate out and use just the flinty part. They don't make good crackers, cookies, etc either. They can make good wet batter cornbread (as do the other types). (Essentially, a wetbatter cornbread starts off being boil/steamed, then ends up being baked.) Any corn can be nixtamalized to make hominy, then tortillas, etc., if you are up for the work. So with a mixed type you pretty much will end up making a wet batter cornbread or nixtamalizing. Colors affect flavor of cornbread a lot, by the way. Every color has a different flavor. Lots of times mixes with lots of different colors in them bake into cornbread that ends up tasting like mud. Some corns actually taste bad. I found one that makes a cornbread that tastes a whole lot like soap. Most "Indian" corns were not mixed color types. They were pure colors. And they were not mixed flint/flour/dent types. They were mostly pure flints or pure flours. I don't grow dents at all because anything I can do with a dent I can do with a flint or flour, but the other things I can do with pure flints or pure flours I can't do with a dent.
Generally, sweet corn does not make good cornbread or polenta. It has a kind of foul bitter taste in cornbread. It has a foul flavor as well as texture as polenta. Those who use do use sweet corn for cornbread are usually diluting it with wheat or other things, not depending upon the cooking and flavor of the corn itself. You can eat any field corn in the green stage, but it may not last long enough in that stage to gather a batch, and it may not be very sweet. Many flour and dent corn varieties are quite sweet in the green stage.
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