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Post by mayz on May 15, 2014 3:44:30 GMT -5
Last week I sown 400 seeds of my sweet corn. Until now no seedlings are visible but weather is fresh and humid. Fortunately a warming is forecast for this weekend
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Post by DarJones on May 15, 2014 8:23:23 GMT -5
I put in 2 rows at 80 feet per of crossed Country Gentleman X Silver King intending to eat some and save a lot of seed to eventually develop a shoepeg type corn with the se gene.
2 rows at 120 feet per of Cherokee Squaw for fresh seed and to cross with 2 high protein corns from ars-grin.
2 and 1/2 rows at 140 feet per of my white drought tolerant corn that I have been working on since 1988. This corn is very productive and makes decent hominy and corn meal.
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Post by Joseph Lofthouse on May 15, 2014 10:58:51 GMT -5
I have planted about:
200 row-feet of Joseph's Frosty sweet corn. It's the first year in 4 that this got frozen. It will recover. I've planted, and left room for plating, some LISP Ashworth beside the patch. Intending to make a hybrid in an attempt to shorten the days-to-maturity of the Frosty.
660 row-feet of Joseph's Popcorn. Inside that patch I planted 240 row-feet that is intended for detasseling to make hybrids with other corn -- attempting to bring other traits into my popcorn such as the glass gem colors, or great taste, or higher nutrition, or super easy shelling, etc. Some of this was popcorn from other sources that I am growing for the first time. I don't trust it to fit my needs, so it gets detasseled. If it is acceptable then it will be incorporated into my popcorn patch. Of note is that the two "gourmet popcorns" that I purchased only popped at about 85%. If I really liked a cob of popcorn, but it didn't pop perfectly it went into the rows to be detasseled. I had so much perfectly popping corn this year that I could be picky about what I planted as pollen donors. At one end of the popcorn patch I planted only white seeds.
320 row-feet of Astronomy Domine. Inside the AD patch I planted 80 feet of other corns that I am intending to detassel to make hybrids. These corns were the Cateto deep orange, a couple seeds from each of the different phenotypes of the South American Synthetic Composite, etc.
120 row feet of LISP Ashworth. This is intended as market corn. It's expected to be the earliest crop of corn at my farmer's market that was produced in my valley.
160 feet of experimental and or segregating sweet corn. These are F1 or F2 hybrids with popcorn, or flint corn, or dent corn. Painted Mountain, Eagle Meets Condor, and the South American corns may be among the F1 ancestors. My popcorn is an F2 ancestor. Cateto is an F1 ancestor. I'm growing them type-to-row, and they are close together in the same patch. This year I will select or reselect for sweet corn, and the next year can start selecting for culinary traits. Eventually I may incorporate these into Astronomy Domine.
160 row-feet of South American Synthetic Composite. Inside that patch is 80 row-feet of Keen101's North American Hybrid Swarm which are intended to be detasseled. This will create Civil War Corn: North Meets South.
Still to plant are:
F2 seed from the cross between LISP Ashworth and Joseph's Popcorn. This cross was made in order to shorten the days-to-maturity of my popcorn, and to bring some of the unique popcorn alleles into my sweet corn. I'm conflicted about how I want to plant it. If I plant single kernels at wide spacings, each cob will more or less pollinate itself. But if I plant them densely in a patch then I get more opportunities to select for maturity dates and other traits that please me. I'm feeling limited on growing space, because this corn can't be planted in my sweet corn field, and it can't be planted in my popcorn field. Whine. Whine.
Paradise Sweet Corn. This is approaching homogeneity for the su and se traits. It's so unreliable for me that I don't know why I bother...
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Post by 12540dumont on May 15, 2014 14:14:18 GMT -5
Because of the drought I planted no sweet corn, whine. On Mother's Day I transplanted 150 Dar's Drought Tolerant Corn. Dar, I'm glad you are replanting. I did plant 200 seeds, so the germ is getting spotty. I have never had corn from you that didn't have a 99% germ! I've isolated this corn from all others, so if she comes along, I should have plenty to send you. Here's some photos of the Isola di Este Corn. This is from GRIN and is from Sondrio, Italy. According to GRIN 67 days to silk. I planted it on 4/11. So far it is vigorous and healthy. It's a nice looking yellow flint. foothillfarm.blogspot.com/My other corn is a blue corn that I'm planning on using for tortillas. So, blue, white, and yellow. That's it for the season, Leo won't till any more corn beds. Whine. I have room for a red
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Post by flowerweaver on May 15, 2014 17:32:54 GMT -5
Here's my corn patch of 400--20 kinds of dent and flour corn varieties in blocks by maturity/height interplanted with NZ clover. Prickly pears are blooming.
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Post by 12540dumont on May 18, 2014 19:59:32 GMT -5
Happy corn!
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Post by RpR on Jun 2, 2014 17:16:02 GMT -5
This year not much planning as I had other matters to deal with and weather pretty much zapped planting any odd-ball exotics so I planted left overs from last year that A: were not used last year and B: used up my South of the Border corns from Redwood City Seeds.
Last year half of the Redwood seed did not germinate or rotted in the ground but as most this year is off-the-cuff, disappointment level will be low. Last years planned planting was a horrible failure but then when I cleaned out a few years ago darn near all germinated and I had far, far more than expected especially as I put down twice as much per row foot than normal to get rid of it.
Only new stuff this year is: Sweet Corns
Golden Queen Cogent hybrid shoe-peg Argent
All from American Seed Company in Penn. They were planted in a drizzling rain so germination should be quick.
Took all my remaining seeds and put them by the Maple tree where I discard old food and seeds. Cleaned up in three day.
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Post by 12540dumont on Jun 2, 2014 20:01:33 GMT -5
Although I have good luck with RWC Seeds in the past, last year the peas I got from them had zero germ. There was not even anything for the birds to pull up!
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Post by oxbowfarm on Jun 3, 2014 10:33:57 GMT -5
I'm running behind on corn. I still have yet to plant my flint corn. I have multiple trays of Cateto from maicerochico and Joseph Lofthouse and GRIN of various ages to transplant into my flint corn to hopefully match up pollination timing to cross the high carotene traits into my flint population. Finally got the flint corn area plowed up and will hopefully plant this week. Flour corn is planted and up. Currently the entire plot is covered in row cover to prevent crow and blackbird predation on the seedlings. I lost my entire first planting of flint corn last year to this and most of the flour corn seed was in such short supply that I would not have had any ability to replant if it was lost. The flour corn project is based on multiple rows of Tuscarora/Cherokee/Six Nations descended flour corn pollinating selected rows of Corioco/Pirincinco which I sourced from maicerochico. I transplanted some of the Coroico rows in, as well as several rows of the flour corn as well as having other rows of each that are direct seeded. I'm hopeful that this will give me enough range of maturity times to have a decent number of plants overlapping in pollination times to make the crosses happen. I also need to be focussed enough to notice when these patches start to tassel and detassel the Cateto and Corioco plants. I'm excited to see what happens .
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Post by 12540dumont on Jun 3, 2014 11:34:27 GMT -5
Coricos are cookies made with corn flour and are traditionally made in the Northeast of México (Sonora and Sinaloa).
Recipe for Coricos (about 36)
1 c vegetable shortening 1 c sugar 2 eggs 2 c corn flour 1 t baking powder 1 t vanilla 1/2 t salt 1/2 c warm water or orange juice (optional) 1/4 c whole wheat flour (divided)
In a big bowl cream vegetable shortening and sugar with an electric mixer until well blended; add eggs and continue beating until incorporated. Add the corn flour, baking powder, vanilla and salt and continue beating, scraping the sides of the bowl with a spatula. All ingredients must be well mixed. If desired you can add warm water or orange juice and a tablespoon of whole wheat flour, to better handle the dough.
After mixing all ingredients take a small portion of dough roll it between your hands to form a log the width of your index finger, forming a ring with the desired diameter (usually about 3 inches in diameter.) If the dough is soft and sticky use the remainder of whole wheat flour to dust your board and hands. Place the rings on a cookie sheet dusted with flour and bake in a 375°F oven for approximately 18 minutes. Start checking after 10 minutes and remove when they start to change color (take care not to burn, as they cook very quickly).
So Oxbow, you going to make us cookies and hot cocoa when you get this corn? I wish you'd write more about it. You know I'm secretly trying to learn everything I can about flour corn, especially as planted in the north.
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Post by 12540dumont on Jun 3, 2014 11:50:59 GMT -5
I'm really excited about your cross, I love Tuscarora. Mixed with Cateco, I think you may have a winner there. www.agron.missouri.edu/mnl/54/40gerrish.html check this out. I think we are in for a long hot fall, so I'm hunting something else to plant. My weather person tells me next year may be very wet here, so I want to plant corn while I can.
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Post by oxbowfarm on Jun 3, 2014 12:29:25 GMT -5
I'm not mixing Tuscarora and Cateto. I'm mixing Tuscarora and Coroico, at least I want to. The Cateto is a flint so I'm trying to combine it with the flints I already have.
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Post by maicerochico on Jun 3, 2014 20:07:50 GMT -5
Oxbow,
Both the Cargill Coroico and Cateto require 1400 - 1500 heat units 'F to silk if they're not stressed. Pollen shed is about 1400 for both. You're pretty far north though, so they might react differently for you.
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Post by stillman on Jun 4, 2014 1:46:15 GMT -5
what is vegetable shortening? Might be called something else in Australia?
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Post by raymondo on Jun 4, 2014 4:59:40 GMT -5
what is vegetable shortening? Might be called something else in Australia? Shortening is just fat or oil. Copha is the classic vegetable shortening available in Australia, but any fat or oil can be substituted, usually. I would replace copha, which is hydrogenated coconut oil, with straight coconut oil because I don't think hydrogenated oils are good for humans. But that's just me.
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