|
|
Post by Joseph Lofthouse on Nov 12, 2010 0:08:33 GMT -5
How good is that compared to an sh or se comercial sweet corn? Can you define good? My first three plantings of se+ sweet corn failed this year. That is bad. Astronomy Domini was my only corn that produced a really good crop. It was chewy, and not super sugary. Regards, Joseph |
|
|
|
Post by tatermater on Nov 12, 2010 3:48:48 GMT -5
Looked at the corn drying in a storage rental...corn picked out of the flooded fields...ankle deep water or more.
The Astronomy Domine is too late for this area planted July 1, 2010. It is generally a late corn compared to the other corns planted. The silk on many A.D.s are like Ruby Queen but the stalks are much taller. I note a limited amount of variability on the earliest ears to mature...mostly yellow bantam types with a few Painted Mountains and Ruby Queens less so. The kernels are drying down with a mix of sweet and dry corn.
The earliest corn to mature of 9 varieties was Painted Mountain...nearly every plant had a harvest-able ear. Next was the Corn without a Summer (Calais) followed by EarlyVee. I have ears of Trinity, Bodacious, and Victory's Sunshine in small amounts. Nice to see all the out-crossing.
Roy's Calais flint corn is an open-pollinated flint corn originally given to me by Dr. Carol Deppe and is a good tasting corn as a roasting ear. I have yellow ears that show quite a few colored kernels...the red ears hard to see the crosses, but the sweet kernels are showing up nicely in the drying ears.
Tom Wagner
BTW. Thank you Alan B. for the Astronomy Domine seed. It was used as alternate row pollinating design. My guess is that only the earliest to tassel will show up in next year's progeny.
|
|
|
|
Post by mnjrutherford on Nov 12, 2010 8:05:21 GMT -5
I want to toss out all the corn we have grown so far and start fresh based on the conversations that have been occurring on the various corn threads here of late. As a completely ignorant person who is interested in eliminating stated condition, I would appreciate any and all suggestions regarding what I should plant and try to develop.
We HAVE:
1. A small amount of wax corn that will be planted in isolation next year. PURPOSE: a) increase seed, b) taste to see if we like it or not, c) see if the animals like it or not
2. A plot that with 8 to 9 100' rows that we have planted with corn years in a row. We planted beans and peas after the corn in order to enhance the nitrogen levels in the soil for the upcoming year. We plant to further enhance the nitrogen with blood meal IF we can find it in bulk in early spring.
3. Plenty of chicken and guinea poo to amend into the soil between now and planting time.
4. Our planting season is about the earliest of most board members. Planting starts mid April and drop dead date is 15 May. We start eating corn mid June.
5. Open to facilitate other members breeding goals.
6. We need corn for human and animal food, eating fresh and dry.
|
|
|
|
Post by DarJones on Nov 12, 2010 19:16:03 GMT -5
Are you looking for sweet corn? or a good animal feed dent corn?
If the latter, I can send you a quart of Cherokee Squaw with the only condition that you save seed and offer to others.
It would be best to get varieties adapted to your climate regardless of source.
DarJones
|
|
|
|
Post by Joseph Lofthouse on Nov 12, 2010 20:09:28 GMT -5
It is impossible for me to look at a seed catalog, or an Internet web site and determine ahead of time which varieties will do well in my garden. I am certainly not qualified to recommend varieties for a different garden.
My strategy towards deciding which varieties to grow is to plant 5 to 50 varieties on the same day in the same field, and then to save the seeds from those individuals/varieties that do best in my garden with it's unique pests, climate, soil, and cultural practices. I might try a new variety from time to time, but as a small sample and not as my entire crop.
|
|
|
|
Post by mnjrutherford on Nov 12, 2010 21:22:26 GMT -5
Thanks Dar! I'm kinda looking for both? This year we planted about 2/3 "people" corn and 1/3 "animal" corn. You can count on me being willing to share the seed.. well... assuming I continue on my improvement curve that is!  We saved enough seed 2 years ago to plant our whole field this year. We saved WAY more than that this year. I don't think I'll share any of though because based on what I'm understanding, it's very possibly GMO. I don't know enough to say that with absolute certainty though. I would rather develop something along the lines of what Joseph calls "land race". I find that most intriguing and I think that works with my thoughts. I'll PM the particulars. |
|
|
|
Post by mnjrutherford on Nov 13, 2010 6:51:54 GMT -5
It is impossible for me to look at a seed catalog, or an Internet web site and determine ahead of time which varieties will do well in my garden. I am certainly not qualified to recommend varieties for a different garden. This has been my head for quite some time now and plays a big part in my decision to toss what we have and start fresh with seed from forum member as much as possible. I figure that if I can acquire seed with a person I can speak to behind it, I can get as much info on the seed as that person wants to share along with local data. I can then extrapolate that data to my circumstances and make a basic guess at suitability for my circumstances. Additionally, we can; as a group, discover the basic extremes of tolerance of a given seed. It is those "extremes of tolerance" that I'm becoming more interested in discerning. Particularly with beans. Did you read the posts between myself and Paquebot? I'm wondering how "sensitive" plants are to temperature and humidity with regard to reproductive cycles. What precisely are the triggers to the various stages? I am guessing that corn and grasses in general have a fairly wide window of tolerance. Things like beans appear to be much narrower. Why? What purpose does that serve? How about other things like solance? Could it be that it's these triggers that cause tomatoes to bear edible fruit while you can't really get a potato to produce a seed bearing fruit? What is up with that? |
|
|
|
Post by DarJones on Nov 13, 2010 14:09:21 GMT -5
Cherokee Squaw is a good flour/meal corn with large ears on strong productive 8 ft. tall plants. Seed color ranges from white to lavendar to blue/purple. It grinds into blue cornmeal to make blue corn bread or can be used as animal feed corn. Plant 2 seeds per hill with hills 15 inches apart in rows 36 inches wide.
This corn is a rarity as an open pollinated variety that is vigorous enough and productive enough to compete with hybrids. As noted, it makes excellent cornmeal. While I can't say what you will get for production, I can tell you that it produced about 6 gallons of shelled corn per 100 ft row for me in 2009. If you convert that into bushels, it works out to around 110 bushels per acre. You MUST feed it a lot to get that kind of production. Don't expect stellar results on poor soil.
This corn is very similar to some of the older gourdseed corns in having soft kernels that are easily ground into meal. It would still be considered a dent corn. While it can be eaten at the milk stage, it won't be very sweet. I'd suggest growing a true sweet corn if you want something for corn on the cob.
DarJones
|
|
|
|
Post by mnjrutherford on Nov 13, 2010 16:22:28 GMT -5
Wow... That sounds totally impressive! Yea, we will grow some sweet for eating as well though I would personally be happy with the less sweet varieties. Mike and the boys like the super sweet corns. Now I'm even more excited about your offer! |
|
|
|
Post by Alan on Nov 13, 2010 16:53:15 GMT -5
Looked at the corn drying in a storage rental...corn picked out of the flooded fields...ankle deep water or more. The Astronomy Domine is too late for this area planted July 1, 2010. It is generally a late corn compared to the other corns planted. The silk on many A.D.s are like Ruby Queen but the stalks are much taller. I note a limited amount of variability on the earliest ears to mature...mostly yellow bantam types with a few Painted Mountains and Ruby Queens less so. The kernels are drying down with a mix of sweet and dry corn. The earliest corn to mature of 9 varieties was Painted Mountain...nearly every plant had a harvest-able ear. Next was the Corn without a Summer (Calais) followed by EarlyVee. I have ears of Trinity, Bodacious, and Victory's Sunshine in small amounts. Nice to see all the out-crossing. Roy's Calais flint corn is an open-pollinated flint corn originally given to me by Dr. Carol Deppe and is a good tasting corn as a roasting ear. I have yellow ears that show quite a few colored kernels...the red ears hard to see the crosses, but the sweet kernels are showing up nicely in the drying ears. Tom Wagner BTW. Thank you Alan B. for the Astronomy Domine seed. It was used as alternate row pollinating design. My guess is that only the earliest to tassel will show up in next year's progeny. Tom, thanks for the update on the Astronomy Domine my friend. Wish I had a cache of f1-f3 seed to have sent you before I started selecting a little harder in one direction. Regardless, there should be some good genetics there for you to use. Roy's Calais is a good dry corn and plenty early enough, the only real issue it has is lodging in wet weather, but with a bit of breeding in the right direction it can be "fixed". Painted mountain, I am convinced, is excellent germplasm for most bio regions unless you have extremely wet weather (lodging again) or an abundance of raccons as the ears are born so shortly to the ground that the raccons will wipe out a field right when the ears hit late milk stage. |
|
|
|
Post by Alan on Nov 14, 2010 0:14:01 GMT -5
Joseph, just saw the AD page on your web-site a minuite ago and thanks for the props my friend. I'm gonna link to your seed list from my blog if you don't mind. Also if you don't mind, once my CSA orders are filled I may borrow your silver dimes idea.
|
|
|
|
Post by Joseph Lofthouse on Nov 14, 2010 0:31:40 GMT -5
Joseph, just saw the AD page on your web-site a minuite ago and thanks for the props my friend. I'm gonna link to your seed list from my blog if you don't mind. Also if you don't mind, once my CSA orders are filled I may borrow your silver dimes idea. Yes. Thank you. |
|
|
|
Post by flowerpower on Nov 29, 2010 7:01:52 GMT -5
I saw some talk in the "Landrace" thread on the AD crosses we have all made. Everyone has their own strain. We've all made selections based on our personal preferences & requirements. I think I am gonna get the 2010 AD from Alan. I like alot of the varieties he has added in since I first got AD. It's alot easier that ordering them separately. I would never consider myself a corn breeder, just a grower. I really know very little about the genetics. Sometimes, I am really blown away by the threads on breeding. But I read them and do learn alot from the members here.  I purposely planted a hybrid sweet corn purposely next to the AD. I used ''Kandy Korn''. Some other corn varieties too. I let Mother Nature handle the pollination. There were some colored corns that showed a bit of sugar when dried. Since I am growing for decoration or animal feed, I don't mind a few sugary ones. But I won't be planting a SE type next yr. Sweet is not what I am really looking for in a corn. |
|
|
|
Post by johno on Nov 30, 2010 17:38:14 GMT -5
Silver, I'm happy to send you some. About how many would you like? (Don't be shy...) It will be a mix of 2008 and 2009 seed.
I had an idea of adding Painted Mountain and Earth Tones to add to the range of colors, but should probably stick to refining what I've got in 2011.
FP, I was wondering what you were doing with your AD. Thanks for the update.
|
|
|
|
Post by Joseph Lofthouse on Nov 30, 2010 20:47:20 GMT -5
I had an idea of adding Painted Mountain and Earth Tones to add to the range of colors, but should probably stick to refining what I've got in 2011. Two of the crosses I did this year are: Painted Mountain X sugary enhanced Earth-Tones Dent X sugary enhanced I have gobs of F1 seed available if anyone wants some. I wasn't very pleased with how Earth-tones looked. It mostly ended up looking gray to me. I'll grow it out and see if I change my mind. The most diversity I found in any of the Indian corns I planted this year was in Hopi Pink... There was lots of variability in kernel shape, and size, and in how tightly it adhered to the cob, etc... |
|
We saved enough seed 2 years ago to plant our whole field this year. We saved WAY more than that this year. I don't think I'll share any of though because based on what I'm understanding, it's very possibly GMO. I don't know enough to say that with absolute certainty though. I would rather develop something along the lines of what Joseph calls "land race". I find that most intriguing and I think that works with my thoughts. I'll PM the particulars.
