I fixed the corn sheller last week. It was manufactured in about 1890, and came to me broken, and missing a handle. I repaired the broken cast iron with fiberglass, epoxy, and steel reinforcing. I built a handle out of wood. Eventually I intend to mix some rust with some oil, and paint the epoxy with the mix and bake it in the oven to make a lacquer and take on the same tone as the rest of the piece.
I set it up to shell Harmony grain corn, which is a cross between the Keen101 North American hybrid swarm, and the South American Synthetic Composite of grain corns. Alas. I took a break to run some errands, and when I came back, a family member has shelled the corn for me, mixing the most precious that I was saving for seed, in with the food grade corn. Aaaaaargh!!! No worries. I sorted seeds by hand to pull out the kernel types that I want to plant next year. (I am targeting larger kernels.) Corn wants to be wild... I don't know what I was thinking! Trying to mold it into my version of the perfect corn. Chaos plant breeding at it's finest. I pulled enough sweet kernels out of the mixed seed to plant a good sized patch. I probably wouldn't have done that if the seed hadn't been jumbled together. So Harmony sweet corn coming soon to a swap near you.
Harmony Grain Corn:
The short description of this variety that I ended up using on my web site:
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Harmony Synthetic Composite Grain CornA union between a hybrid swarm of North American grain corns and a synthetic composite of 6 races of South American grain corns: Tuxpeno, Coastal Tropical Flint-Dent, Southern Cateto, Cuzco, Coroico, and high-altitude Andean. Harmony was developed to reunite various races of corn and to create a strong genetic base from which to conduct plant selection and breeding. Contains flint, dent, flour, and a small amount of sweet corn. Adapted to temperate growing conditions. Not day-length sensitive. About 85 to 115 DTM to grain stage. Selected for resistance to predation by birds and small mammals. One of the most exciting traits offered by this corn is high concentrations of carotenes. I speculate that this improves the nutritional content of the corn: Especially for poultry. OSSI-pledged. ~100 seeds.
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Details about the breeding history that I submitted to ossi: The submission was in a Q&A format. I eliminated the questions from the following...
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This variety originated as a cross between North American and South American grain corns.
The South American corns were originally developed by Cargill in the 1970s. The press release said: “The Maize Research and Development Section of Cargill, Inc. announces the release of five non-Corn Belt Dent populations derived separately and in major proportion from the Latin American racial complexes Tuxpeno, Coastal Tropical Flint-Dent, Southern Cateto, Cuzco and Coroico. […] The principal developmental feature, the alteration from a short to a long day adaptation,”
The North American grain corns were originally provided to me by Andrew Barney from Colorado. They were a grex of many diverse phenotypes from across North America. They included flints, dents, flour, and recessive sweets which were not expressed when originally planted. To these were added some decorative corns which I have grown for years, and Glass Gem.
An additional parent to this population was “Eagle Meets Condor” which originated with Dave Christensen of Montana as a cross between Painted Mountain and high altitude South American corns.
The variability among the original plantings of this corn was immense. Plant height varied between 2 to 12 feet. Kernel size varied from micro-kernels to huge kernels. Days to maturity varied from super-early to super-long. Characteristics of the leaves, stems, cobs, and kernels varied across a wide spectrum. The South American corns tend towards higher cob placement, thus minimizing predation by mammals and ground birds. The South American population also contributed yellow aleurone, high carotene endosperm, and thin pericarp.
Many of the South American corns self-eliminated in the initial planting by failing to produce cobs after tasseling or by being too long season.
Flint, dent, and flour corn were represented in both of the original populations. However the South American corns called by those names differ significantly in kernel morphology from the North American corns.
Mass cross within two separate populations, followed by hybridization between the populations. Promiscuous Pollination. Selection from highly variable populations.
The primary goal of this breeding project is genetic diversity and high productivity in a no-input agricultural system. Because the North American and South American populations diverged so long ago, I suspect that there may be important traits to be discovered as they recombine.
The Cateto population contributed genes for high concentrations of carotenes in the endosperm. This trait has the potential to offer higher nutrition corn. We are currently planning experiments to test if feeding this corn to chickens will cause the yolks to be dark orange. If the results are favorable, then this would lead to higher marketability of both the eggs and the corn.
Promiscuous pollination of grexes, hybridization between grexes, and recurrent mass selection. Survival-of-the-fittest and farmer directed selection occurred at each stage of the process. The population was heavily selected for higher cob placement to minimize animal predation and to avoid having to bend over to harvest. This variety is grown without fertilizer or -cides in order to select for great growth under sustenance growing conditions.
Significant genetic drift has occurred in this variety while it has been in my garden. Heavy selection pressure has occurred due to environmental factors and to farmer preference. This is a breeding population with a substantial degree of variation between individuals.
