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Post by Alan on Apr 24, 2010 16:33:40 GMT -5
Hey Mike, Yes I really consider the Bear Island a hard/thick shelled flour and I listed it in the SSE yearbook as a flour, not a flint. What I find is many mix colored corns are usually called flint although they are not. This little guy has a lot of breeding potential to it. I like to grow it every couple years since it is so short of a season, I can sneak it in early and late. Blueflint Our friend Tom here sent me a sample of this this year, It's being grown in isolation and is already up and running. A couple corns you sent me last year are being grown this season in cow bird gardens in isolation as well! Thanks for all the work you do Blueflint, it is appreciated by many! Michael, wonderul news and thanks for sharing my friend! |
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Post by darwinslair on Apr 25, 2010 7:47:37 GMT -5
I planted pretty much what I had left of it. Excited to see how it does in this seemingly extended growing season, as well as the fact I can grow more kinds this year simply due to time I will have to stagger plantings with how early it warmed up this year. Painted Mountain is my next one to plant and still thinking of crossing BIF back into it. Rain right now is cramping planting, but need water. Just wish the rain stuck to the time i was in the office instead of time I could be in the fields.
Tom
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Post by wildseed57 on Apr 27, 2010 14:16:30 GMT -5
All this talk of corn varieties has me wondering about them, I have been gardening for many years and am still learning, and corn is one plant I have yet to take a good look at. I see the point of growing dwarf corn so that the sun can reach the soil, but dosen't growing smaller corn reduce the amount of ears on the stocks, so that you have to plant more of them to get the same amount of ears the larger varieties produces? i know very little about the older varieties so I'm guessing that the older they are the less they actually produce. I'm assuming that only a few newer varieties actually produce multable ears? I envisioned seeing a field of flavorful sweet corn ten feet tall with 8 or 9 ears per plant, but if it was possible to come up with a good eating corn it would have already been bred to do so. I do know that corn uses a vast amount of nitrogen and minerals, so the larger the corn is the more nitrogen and minerals it uses up. To bad that you can't naturally breed a corn variety that fixes nitrogen to the soil like legumes do, but I guess that is why they grow beans with corn to help fix the nitrogen in the soil so that the corn can use it . Correct? Any way the varieties of corn that is offered on the market is a sad replacement of what it could be. Painted Mountain sounds interesting and I look forward to hearing more about it and some others.
George W. Z5-6 MO.
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Post by blueadzuki on Apr 27, 2010 17:57:23 GMT -5
All this talk of corn varieties has me wondering about them, I have been gardening for many years and am still learning, and corn is one plant I have yet to take a good look at. I see the point of growing dwarf corn so that the sun can reach the soil, but dosen't growing smaller corn reduce the amount of ears on the stocks, so that you have to plant more of them to get the same amount of ears the larger varieties produces? i know very little about the older varieties so I'm guessing that the older they are the less they actually produce. I'm assuming that only a few newer varieties actually produce multable ears? I envisioned seeing a field of flavorful sweet corn ten feet tall with 8 or 9 ears per plant, but if it was possible to come up with a good eating corn it would have already been bred to do so. I do know that corn uses a vast amount of nitrogen and minerals, so the larger the corn is the more nitrogen and minerals it uses up. To bad that you can't naturally breed a corn variety that fixes nitrogen to the soil like legumes do, but I guess that is why they grow beans with corn to help fix the nitrogen in the soil so that the corn can use it . Correct? Any way the varieties of corn that is offered on the market is a sad replacement of what it could be. Painted Mountain sounds interesting and I look forward to hearing more about it and some others. George W. Z5-6 MO. actually most modern commercial corns (at least sweet corns, I'v never looked up the rest) are bred to produce only ONE cob. the reason for this is simply economic, commerical gorowers want all of the plants enegy going into making the biggest sweet corn cob they can (so they can get the best price for it) and the plant only has so much energy to give; multipe cobs means divinding that energy. That's also one of the reasons why dwarf is so popular, less enegy going into the stalk means more going into the cob (I've often though that, should genetic engineering reach the poit where we can get crops to look and act like whatever we like them to, the corn plant of the future will have no stalk at all just a single ear coming straight out of the ground, with roots on one end and a tassel coming out of the other (some gene combination can cause corn to make tassels on the end of the cobs just like some can make kernels appear in the tassel) Actually, as far as I am aware (and Corndancer knows, there is a lot about maize I am igonrant of) relitively few corn even the old ones can manage 8 or 9 ears) two or three is more the norm, that's all most varieties can mangae. I think there one can can usally do six called, appropriately, Six Gun. Chires Babby can produce upwards of 20 to even 30 cobs, but that's becuse its a mutitillerd (multi-stalked) corn whose cobs were desigend to be tiny so they would be good for those people who want baby corn for stir frys (baby gorn is usually corn picked as soon as the tassels emerge before it grows up. A miniature can allow growers a little more time plus a much higher yield per acre) Most corn strains just can take producing tons and tons of cobs, not without most aborting or coming out too late to be pollinated. that kind of multi cob trick is largely left in the old mesomerican strains and the wild teosinte; most corn races lost it along the way. |
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Post by keen101 (Biolumo / Andrew B.) on Apr 27, 2010 20:28:17 GMT -5
My corn is doing well so far. I planted around april 1st, since it was so warm here in northern colorado. I've never planted corn this early, so i guess if we get any surprise spring snow, it will be my own fault. But, I already had two brief early morning frosts, and it didnt seem to phase my corn much, so i think they are pretty hardy. Already starting to see a few purple stems. I dont know what "variety" it is. Mostly a mish-mosh of indian corn decendants from two seasons. I guess you would call them F2 or maybe F3 offspring. They had probably been sitting around for 10-20 years by the time i first planted them. I think some of the original was from the "Cherokee Squaw Corn" (white/blue), a small red/round variety looked similar to the picture of "Flor de Rio", and a white/striped (chinmarked variety). I'm breeding mostly for my own future variety. If i had to guess I'd say what i have now is a "flour corn", but i tried picking and eating a few from last year, and they were quite edible and sweet in the milk/light color stage. I couldn't tell the difference from sweet corn, but it was fresh. I'm trying to get pure purple (leaved) ones. Just because there are so many green corn fields everywhere. It would also be awesome to make some tamales with the purple husks. haha  Also, the first time i planted my indian corn, i got only one pure purple, and the rest were pure green. It was a sight to see. I did add some variety to my small 10' x 10' square this year. I added some called "Chicka Peru", supposedly from peru, and a few white (Mojave), and Blue Hopi. I also planted some teosinte and gamagrass too. So, i guess im trying to increase variety. The Mojave variety is supposedly a native corn to the colorado basin, so i thought it would be cool to grow a little of that. Also the hopi blue is sortof adapted to desert conditions. |
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Post by darwinslair on Apr 29, 2010 9:57:48 GMT -5
Even with the locations I had, and the ability to really stagger planting times I was worried about having room and sufficient time between tassel dates to do them all.
And then a "gift" fell in my lap. I was invited to do another garden, about 50X100, close to my home. So that covers all of my corn and gives me breathing room on tassel dates.
Tom
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Post by blueadzuki on Apr 29, 2010 11:23:45 GMT -5
Moving from one Bear to another, I would be interested in heard a little more information about this Seneca Blue Bear Dance Flour corn that you had on the orginal list a year ago. Some time ago (about two years or so) I got so tired of how losy my corn turned out that I began to look around for native corn grown as close to me as possible (the idea being that, if I used a native native cornas my base, I might get something a little more adapted to my area. As it happens that idea really didn't go anywhere, as I happen to live in the very bottom of the Hudson valley in an area that got settled by the Dutch really early (translation no residental Indians in the area for at least 400 years and the colonial Dutch tended to give thier slaves the same wheat and rye they themselves were eating) But Seneca blue bar dance was one of the ones that came closest, maybe (depending on which group of Seneca's the corn came from) and I always wanted to know more about it.
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Post by Blueflint on Apr 30, 2010 14:48:40 GMT -5
The Seneca Blue Bear Dance is a flour corn, mostly soft shades of blue and lavender, some white kernels. This is a flour corn, not a hard flint. Ears get to 6" long is all. It is originally from New York area but that is all the information I have.
Blueflint
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Post by blueadzuki on Apr 30, 2010 15:25:52 GMT -5
thnaks for the info. Well well a real new york state soft flour corn. intersting I though that almost all the native corns of the NE were flints (soneone once told me that that's all that would grow reliably up here) have to keep this one in mind.
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Post by darwinslair on May 13, 2010 6:58:46 GMT -5
Just as a note on the Bear Island Flint:
Mine emerged 3 weeks ago at my parents place. I have about 2500' feet of it in in down there. Since it emerged, there have been 4 frosts, and one of those nights got down to 25 degrees. The seedlings are doing fine and seem none the worse for wear. There are now no more cold nights in the extended forecast.
Tom
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Post by darwinslair on May 16, 2010 21:19:43 GMT -5
holy smokes batman! I got Mandan White Flint and Mandan Yellow Flint in the mail this weekend!!!
Where the heck am I going to put it?
aw hell, I will find somewhere. Just too cool. 100 seeds of each.
Tom
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