|
Post by Joseph Lofthouse on Oct 19, 2010 18:36:36 GMT -5
I picked open pollinated land-race popcorn this weekend. Here is a photo of some of it drying down in the shed. Regards, Joseph
|
|
|
Post by Darth Slater on Oct 19, 2010 20:43:53 GMT -5
Very nice Joeseph, I was thinking about putting in some popcorn i dont think I have ever seen any like that. I have a big field with not much in it and was thinking about growing some kind of indian corn. I had alf alfa in it but there isnt much in the way of nutrients, except perhaps nitrogen from the cover crop. I would love to try anything you can spare.
Dean
|
|
|
Post by synergy on Oct 19, 2010 20:45:56 GMT -5
I am new here but I just wanted to say that looks amazing, any difference in the taste?
|
|
|
Post by heidihi on Oct 19, 2010 21:46:00 GMT -5
omg I can not form words!!!!
|
|
|
Post by Joseph Lofthouse on Oct 19, 2010 22:35:49 GMT -5
Taste is more flavorful.
It's getting so cold here that the seeds will take 2-3 weeks to dry. PM me your address if you'd like some. (I didn't upload a photo of the prettiest cobs that I've set aside for seed next year.)
One nice thing about early frosts... Is that it automatically selects for shorter season corn. This year I only tossed about 5% of the popcorn crop for being too immature. The first year I grew it I fed about 25% to the chickens.
|
|
|
Post by mnjrutherford on Oct 20, 2010 7:30:17 GMT -5
Joseph - Any chance you would sell me a few pounds of the popcorn? Not for seed, but for popcorn? If you have enough that is.
We got about 1/2 a pound of Amish grown popcorn in Indiana. It was amazing. The flavor difference between the Amish and our usual "Orville Redenbacher" was most surprising. It also popped better, fewer unpopped kernels AND it didn't have the nasty hulls that tend to embed themselves into ones gums. We've saved some of the seed and hope to grow it out next year.
|
|
|
Post by DarJones on Oct 20, 2010 10:10:52 GMT -5
Now that brings in mind an idea.
There are several popcorns that are called "hull less". I haven't looked at the genetics involved, but it is certain that they are not truly hull less. More probable is that they have a thin easily removed hull. Now think of it a bit. The se gene causes a much thinner pericarp and what is referred to as a 'hull' is actually the pericarp around the endosperm. What if we crossed a good popping popcorn with an se sweet corn and then segregated and backcrossed to incorporate the se gene into a popcorn background? Would we get the thinnest hulled popcorn ever?
There is a project for you Joseph! It would take at least 3 generations of crossing, segregating, selfing, and backcrossing to get the se gene into a popcorn background.
Outstanding photo of your corn. I've got an Open Pollinated variety that makes the crunchiest nuttiest flavored popcorn around. Since I grow so many kinds of corn each year, I only grow it every 5 years or so.
DarJones
|
|
|
Post by Joseph Lofthouse on Oct 20, 2010 11:12:58 GMT -5
What if we crossed a good popping popcorn with an se sweet corn and then segregated and backcrossed to incorporate the se gene into a popcorn background? Would we get the thinnest hulled popcorn ever? This year I grew one cob like this. It came about when a popcorn pollinated a sugary enhanced sweet corn, then I back-crossed it to a sugary enhanced sweet corn. So the genetics are 75% sugary enhanced with 50% of kernels being homozygous. I tried popping 10 of the smooth kernels today. Steam escaped from the tip of the kernel. They caramelized without popping. With such a small sample set I don't know what that means. Regards, Joseph
|
|
|
Post by catherinenm on Aug 5, 2011 17:18:46 GMT -5
Hi, Joseph I had to resurrect this thread. I'm south of you, but live at 7200 ft on a mountain side, so I need short-season crops. I'm interested in your popcorn. How long a season does it require? My kids and I prefer multi-color popcorn, and are planning to grow some out from the bulk bins at Whole Foods next year, but I suspect it will require a longer, warmer summer than we can count on. After reading a bunch of threads in this topic, I was already planning to interplant with Painted Mountain and breed for a shorter season, but you already have a great headstart on that! I don't mean to sound so needy. It's just that we really love popcorn, would like to grow our own, and SSE just doesn't have many selections geared to a cool, short season. At least they don't have many/any identified as such. I have enjoyed reading about your breeding work. I used to grow Navajo Blue flour corn, and now I'm interested in growing Navajo Blue, Taos Blue, Hopi Blue, San Felipe Blue, Hernandez Blue, etc all together and try to get something that thrives at my elevation and climate. I have been so much in the box that it never occurred to me to cross the lines. Doh! Thanks for expanding my gardening horizons! Catherine
|
|
|
Post by Joseph Lofthouse on Aug 5, 2011 18:49:35 GMT -5
Catherine:
Unfortunately, my popcorn landrace started before I was aware of plant breeding, and before I was consciously selecting for better growth. It performs adequately. And I've got so many breeding projects in progress that one more might be too many, so for the time being I am not intending on replacing it, or working on making it shorter seasoned. It's being semi-passively improved.
My popcorn takes a few weeks longer than what my growing season provides.... I plant it about May 5th. Average last spring frost is May 28th. Average first fall frost is mid-September. I harvest it in October. My summer daytime temperatures are around 85-90 F, with nighttime temperatures around 55 F. Every year some of the crop doesn't get harvested due to being immature when that final hard killing frost finally arrives. I suppose that means that every year the main crop gets a little bit earlier. How does that compare to your season? If you have about the same or longer growing season and/or higher temperatures it should work fine for you.
I'll have seed available in about November. Send me a personal message then for seed. Why so long? I let the cobs dry on the stalks as long as possible, and then I harvest and they have to dry a lot longer in an unheated shed, then I count out 100 kernels from one cob and pop them in the microwave. If they pop great or taste fantastic the cob gets used for seed. If they are ho-hum in taste or popping ability they get fed to the chickens.
I don't think I'd use painted mountain in a popcorn breeding project. (Although the narrow cobs might improve dry-down time dramatically.) I'd think the Hopi corns would be better adapted to New Mexico. Even better: There are lots of flint corns than I'd expect would be easy to select for popping ability, for example it seems to me like "Glass Gem" could easily be converted into a popcorn if it doesn't already have that ability. The secret to visually selecting for good popping ability is a hard shell, and transparent glassy looking starch.
[Later edit: I shelled some Painted Mountain flour corn and popped it in the microwave. The skin was hard enough to retain moisture until the steam popped the kernel. The kernel after popping was the same size as before popping, so I ended up with a bag of grannies.]
|
|
|
Post by gray on Aug 6, 2011 9:16:16 GMT -5
Joesph your popcorn looks similar to glass gem in that it has some of the same color combinations on the cobs. Though glass gem seems to have pinks and lavenders and blues that I dont see in your popcorn. It also has some pearl looking kernels. Gray
|
|
|
Post by DarJones on Aug 6, 2011 10:05:19 GMT -5
For most of the flint corns, the soft starch in the middle is not structured properly to enable popping. Parch corns will partially pop forming soft crunchy 'grannies' that are edible.
You could still introgress earlier maturity into popcorn lines, but it will require a bit of work. Start out by crossing the popcorn to the early maturity corn using the popcorn as a pollen parent. Popcorn has a selective gene that causes it to only pollinate from other popcorn most of the time. Most Flint and Dent types of corn do not have this restriction so can serve as female parents.
DarJones
|
|
|
Post by catherinenm on Aug 8, 2011 9:36:26 GMT -5
Hi, Joseph
We have last frost around May 15 (more like May 20 the past 2 years) and first frost around Sept 15. Summer temperatures are 75-80 days and 55 nights. Similar summer lenght to yours, but just a bit cooler.
DarJones, thanks for the information about flint and dent corns as female parents. That would never have occurred to me.
My dad grew about 25 acres of popcorn for a co-op in Eastern Colorado when I was in high school. I know there are lots of acres of feed corn grown all around there, and it never dawned on me back then that crossing might or might not be a problem. Dad never kept his own corn seeds to plant again. He did keep wheat, but only after he went to the trouble of driving to some place in the Dakotas to get a then-new shorter wheat (36 inches, as I recall) to resist lodging.
Ahh, the conversations I could have with him now....
Catherine
|
|
|
Post by mnjrutherford on Aug 12, 2011 7:45:27 GMT -5
Guessing - "parch" corn would be starch corn right? It hadn't occured to me that the quality of the starch would play a part in the end result of the popped corn. Got an idea what would happen with the wax corn if it's popped? If there are enough seed, I might try popping a few kernals.
Speaking of the wax corn, I just discovered that the cobs are hollow.
|
|
|
Post by Alan on Aug 21, 2011 21:57:27 GMT -5
Earlier tonight I took 7 kernals of glass gem that Gray was kind enough to provide me with and on a whim (without having seen this thread until tonight when I searched for "Glass Gem" on the forum) I put them in a bowl in the microwave. 6 poped and 1 got half way there. Looks like we have some fantastic future material to breed with once we have stock bulked up for adding to a landrace popcorn.
|
|