Questions about GMO, Corn Genetics and some Corn Pictures

[blueadzuki]

Joseph, caroldeppe For the most part I agree that those were probably the original motivations of the early settlers vis a vis selecting dent as the standard. However now a great deal is probably force of habit and inertia. As I pointed out a "shell" flint/flour actually meets the goals Joseph pointed out even better than a dent does )the lack of a "break" in the hard flint shell means even more insect and mold protection (I know from experience that storage insects have no problem getting into a dent kernel if they enter from the top) and the higher floury content means it's even easier to work with. But there is now a multi-century base of industry based around working with dent, and barring a rather bizarre situation where all of the world's corn disappeared and we had to figure out how to re-create it all from scratch, (yes I know we probably can't actually do that) that will likely never change.

[reed]

I think the flour, protected by flint is a very good sounding thing, in my limited experience, that is. The ears I have selected have just that. When I cut them open there is the soft white surrounded by a thin layer of the colored flint, no gaps in the flint. When I crush them up I get quite a bit of white powder with little hard chunks. I don't want to lose that even as I add more flour from the Painted Mountain or others. 

My theory is I should be able to make a meal that has enough flour that I won't have to add anything else to make corn bread. And that the little gritty pieces will give it a nice texture. I don't like soft moist cornbread, as is so common, might as well use a cake mix.  I like dry crumbly cornbread with flavor. 

Carol indicated flavor may not be the same depending on how it is cooked so I guess I'll find out if baking is as good or not as parching in the skillet. I'd love to go ahead and test that but don't have enough to do so. 

[Carol Deppe]

Reed--Flour corn cobs are often somewhat hollow/flexible. So maybe the fact that that is a characteristic of your best parching/tasting ears is because those have more flour type. Also, beyond being a flour corn and of the right colors, other details affect the culinary quality of a parching corn. Some corns have kernels with big wide woody attachments to the cob that are unpalatable when the corn is merely parched and eaten rather than ground. In the best parching corns the kernels have relatively small attachments to the ear. Generally speaking, they are easy to shell. In the selecting for good parching type in 'Parching Magenta' and 'Parching Red Supai' I actually hand tested every cob (of thousands) for ease of shelling and culled out those that were too difficult before running them through the sheller. By doing so I probably selected both for ease of shelling and small seed attachments.

[reed]

Yes, most of them shelled very easy. On some just twist the cob and the kernels pop off. I didn't notice the woody attachments but especially the big red ear has sort of a paper consistency material that surrounds the base of the kernel and comes off the cob with it. It is easy to pull off, one kernel at a time but it isn't unpleasant to just leave it on and eat it. I am concerned though that in large amounts it might gum up a grinder.

[Carol Deppe]

I've noticed that papery wrapping. It surrounds just the base of kernels of most ears of most varieties. But occasionally it actually extends almost all the way to the top of the kernels and really uglifies the ears. I cull those types of ears. Delicious is primary, but beauty also matters. I usually winnow my corn before I grind it by pouring it through the airflow from a fan. With most varieties, that papery stuff is a minor component and most separates from the kernel. In some cases when I'm being really fussy I rub the corn kernels between my hands, then blow away all the paper before I parch. But to make it as a parching corn with me the variety needs to have little of that paper, and what it has needs to come off in the ordinary process of shelling and winnowing.

With respect to grinding, even an impact grinder can take a fair amount of that papery stuff. Sometimes I have only unwinnowed corn around and it has been raining for days, so I can't winnow it. In that case, I might just shake the corn in a bowl or bucket to let most of the "debris" migrate to the bottom, then take a few cups off the top to grind. Those few cups have, I'd say, about 3/4 of the debris removed, but retain the rest. That much debris doesn't affect the quality of the meal or flour enough to notice in baking, but I do notice it in polenta, and consider it unacceptable in parched corn. That amount of debris has never bothered my impact mill (a Whispermill aka GrainMaster). What doesn't work is parching corn and then using an impact mill. I clogged mine both times I tried that. However, you can grind a true flour corn, parched or raw, in a coffee mill or many kinds of blenders.

[Carol Deppe]

Reed--Sweet corns seem to be variants of flints or dents. Modern sweet corn lines seem to be against a dent background, but a dent with a bit more flint than flour. If they cross with a true flour type they can introduce both dent and/or flint types as contamination. I've only grown one gourdseed corn; it was a flour type with a long narrow kernel and a very tiny attachment to the ear.

[blueadzuki]

Aren't those papery things just the sub husks, the things that completely enclose the kernels in pod corn? I've always assumed that much as there exists a spectrum between pure hard starch (if it exists) and pure soft starch, there existed a spectrum of how much of those sub husks there were, from long enough to cover the kernels all the way (pod), to part of the way, to the little bit of chaff that many of our corns have.

[Carol Deppe]

blueadzuki--I've never grown or even seen any podcorn in person, so don't know. But your idea makes sense.

[blueadzuki]

I HAVE seen some pod corn (it has a minor vogue in some ornamental circles). Basically apart from the husks (called glumes) it looks a lot like popcorn, though often with a slightly longer "shank" (that woody attachment stuff you mentioned) At least what I had looked like that. I've seen a picture of what looks like a pod dent, too. It occurs to me that, as all that is needed for a corn to be classified as a pod IS that enclosing glume, there may be pod versions of most to ALL of the other corns; pod flours pods dents even pod sweets). Certainly, among the pictures I have seen there are clearly pod corns with both the long North American type of ear and the short fat Mesoamerican/Andean type of ear.

I found this picture of a pod with glumes that are open at the top which sort of shows what I meant

[Carol Deppe]

Ahhh. Interesting. I've never had anything with glumes as extended as that show up in my corn varieties. But an occasional ear has come close with glumes that extend all the way up the sides, but not over the tops of the kernels.

[reed]

Thank goodness what I have is nothing that extreme, covers maybe 20% at the base and isn't visible at all before shelling.

[flowerweaver]

Wow, that pod corn is odd! You know, I wonder if a bit more flinty cap wouldn't be of benefit to me even though it is a more northern trait. I don't usually have insect damage, but you'll recall much of what was left of my corn after the tornado became infested with fire ants, which just shelled the kernels out leaving the pericarp. Other than the occasional earworm insects really haven't been a problem before in my corn.

Now that the same field is planted in cowpeas, I've discovered the fire ants are en masse, along with chiggers and ticks. Not to mention the field mice have discovered the cowpeas. Out of all my various fields, this one has chewed me up!

[reed]

Carol Deppe, flowerweaver, Joseph Lofthouse, blueadzuki Hi, corn people. I have a new picture and some more questions. These kernels are from the big red ear I am so fond of because of its flavor when cooked on a hot skillet or microwaved. 



I need help knowing what I am looking at. The top left is just a kernel, you can see the paper like stuff that stays with a lot of the kernels, I'm not worried about it as it does not seem to effect flavor and it rubs off easily. Next are kernels cut open both ways. I think the white part is flour endosperm and the red part (looks black in the pictures) is flint. Removing the pericarp I get the pink. Is that the aleurone layer? When I scratch it off I get a yellow or a white kernel. 


So this ear has dark red pericarp (the same on all kernels) , pink aleurone (also same on all kernels) and yellow or white (flint) endosperm? Flour endosperm is always white?

Is there any possible way to know the flint color without dissection so that I could only plant the white ones? 

[blueadzuki]

Your basically right. There IS such a thing as corn with colored soft endosperm (usually pale purple) but it's rare, and mostly confined to the Mesoamerican and South American populations (some of the purple kernels of Andean I sometimes get out of the bin at the bodega have it, maybe 1 out of every 20)

As for picking out the white ones, hard to say. If the pericarp was clear, the job would be easy. Pink over white stays pink; pink over yellow usually looks more orange. But with that dark red pericarp, the difference may be to subtle to be discernable. About the only idea I have is as follows; leave the corn you are planning to plant as it is until JUST before you plant it. Just before you do, give it a soak and then peel the pericarps off. If you are VERY careful it is possible to get the pericarp off a kernel of corn without damaging the underlying corn kernel to the point of non-viability. It you want to be extra safe, instead of trying to peel the whole pericarp off, take a very sharp knife and simply cut a window in the top to see the color underneath (if it's too dark to see with the rest of the pericarp on, take a tiny wafer off the endosperm with the knife and check that. Trust me the kernel won't miss such a tiny amount. Then plant the one's that "pass" (if you are worried about mold getting in, simply re-seal the hole with something waterproof and inert (wax would probably work, if you put it in a shallow pan and dipped the cut side in). It won't be quick (particularly if you are planning to plant a LOT of corn from this cob, since you'll have to do each kernel one by one.) But it's the best Idea I can up with.

[reed]

Blue, yes I was thinking of something along those lines. If I soak the seeds the day before planting I might be able to slice out a little spot deep enough to see the color inside. I thought I would do it on the edge where the flint is thickest, to maybe get a better sample and maybe do less damage. I was planning to germ test it and do as Joseph suggested and spray the ones I germ test with Round-Up in hopes it kills them. I can do this test along with that.

This ear has quite a lot of seeds, I have about 200 or so drying down more in a paper sack to go in the freezer. I looked at a LOT of ears of corn and this is the only one that looked like this so if it passes all the tests I want to make sure I have a back up. The rest minus these and the ones I ate are still on the cob. I hope to have around 10 good plants as mothers and 10 for pollen, so I figure I'll start with around 100.