Cocopah and Paiute

[blueadzuki]

Hi all,
Just got my Native seeds SEARCH catalog in todays mail and it reminded me of a question that bothered me.

Among the sweet corn offerings listed by native seeds at least until last season, was the variety Cocopah, described as a red white and blue sweetcorn. Starting last season that variety was dropped and one called Paiute was added which had the exact same description ( I actually pulled out my previous catalog to make sure and the descriptions are word for word the same). I already had a sample of a sweetcorn called Paiute courtesy of La Boutique du Kokopelli (though some slightly odd circumstances) to me they do not look quite the same (Paiute seems to have a wide color palette), but I was wondering if any of you greater "maize"-terminds and "corn"-noscenti could render the final word.

[Alan]

They are very similar, coming from the same area, they may even be selections of one another, but there are differences.

The major difference being that the inbreeding depression in the two lines is much more apparent in Paute than it is in Cocopah and that Cocopah seems to be the more colorful of the two, both are components of Astronomy Domine.

[blueadzuki]

Ah yes I see. On the colorful I'd say its a toss up, the color palette in My Paiute sample is a bit wider (It has yellow and magenta in addion to the red white and blue) but the colors run stronger in the Cocopah sample. The Pauite also has a couple speckled kernels however based on what you have told me earlier re:the causes of speckling its presence in a sample seens to argue for over inbreeding.

[Alan]

A really wonderful experiment lay in these two varieties though!


a genepool of the two.....This will maintain the colors, and presuming the lines are very similar and related (all but positive that they are actually selections of some older strain) it will expand the genetic pallet a wee bit and give rise to an eventual new OP which will maintain those genes and their native american heritage for generations to come!

[silverseeds]

I might be able to get cocopah. I do have a few dried ears, from two years ago, grew well, and filled out well, but I had only 30 plants or so.

I might be able to get them somewhere else as well. If you want them and the one si have arent good enough I will try...