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Post by castanea on Nov 28, 2009 0:52:28 GMT -5
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Post by Blueflint on Nov 29, 2009 8:05:52 GMT -5
I read an article back in 2007 about one of the Pawnee corns being planted with moderate success. The Pawnee had several corn varieties originally.
In the above links,
The dark blue ear appears to be the Pawnee Blue, a blue - black flour corn, ears 8" to 10" long on plants 6' to 8' tall.
The light red ear looks like Pawnee Red Flour corn, ears 6" long on average, light red in color.
Side note, the Pawnee Red Flour looks a lot like Manden Red Clay Flour corn.
Blueflint
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Post by castanea on Nov 29, 2009 11:44:43 GMT -5
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Post by castanea on Nov 29, 2009 12:01:42 GMT -5
From the fencepost link:
"One variety, called eagle corn for the distinctive black marks on each kernel that resemble spread wings, has been a particularly big challenge — and perhaps the project’s biggest success. At one point, only 25 kernels of eagle corn were still known to exist. This fall, O’Brien shipped another five ears of kernels to Deb Echo-Hawk, who supplied that first seed corn and who runs the Pawnee Nation’s seed bank in Oklahoma."
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Post by canadamike on Nov 29, 2009 15:35:35 GMT -5
Do you know if they regenerated it? I doubt you can save a corn for more than a few years with 25 seeds...
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Post by castanea on Nov 29, 2009 16:57:20 GMT -5
My knowledge is limited to these articles.
I find this a fascinating subject but unfortunately I don't know much about corn breeding.
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Post by Blueflint on Nov 29, 2009 21:22:27 GMT -5
On a similar note, a rare Iroquois corn named Darwin John was saved from a planting that only had 11 seed germinate and produce. Luckely, the original stock (OLD) was from a fairly large planting so these were not inbred.
Blueflint
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Post by Alan on Nov 30, 2009 0:53:48 GMT -5
I've been reading a bit about these corn restoration projects for quite a while and about the Native American tribes of various distinctions returning to their culinary, agronomic, and spirtual heritage. This is what makes the world turn and what makes what we do and those projects we work on so very important.
Castanea thanks for the links by the way, waiting for a rain day to do some more research, I don't have room anywhere for any more corn varieties but I do love reading about them and their preservation and restoration.
I don't see how they are saving these varieties in closed systems with so few seeds, but if they can do so then more power to them, I know I've worked with 500-1,000 seeds of rare varieties before and the inbreeding depression was so very terrible that nothing was salvagable unless it was put in a melting pot genepool like Astronomy Domine. One of the many sweet corns I had been working with for four years and had been so excited about was like this. Red Evergreen, a larger red kernel version of everygreen. I got two samples from the USDA and they were both so inbred as to have become totally useless even with four years of intense selection. However when I crossed back to evergreen I saw remarkable improvement (to be continued in coming years) and immediately added those hybrid genetics to Astronomy Domine from which I'll be selecting for that particular crimson color (darker than ruby queen) and that shape and size of sweet corn seed (think of NK 199 but slightly larger).
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