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Post by reed on Apr 4, 2015 6:38:26 GMT -5
I have a partner that I'm counting on to help out a lot with the selection. I don't know what criteria she will use. It might be late frosts, maybe hail storms, droughts, bugs, birds, fungus or any combination there of. I just need to give her maximum genetic diversity to start with. All I gotta do is a little weeding and a lot of watching, tasting and tagging . When she is done with her part I can say, o' that one tastes awful good, that one has a nice strong stalk or that one over there matured really fast. Those will be the next years seed but if I end up with say 50 of them and get say 300 seeds per that is 15,000 seeds for 2016 patches that can hold 1,500. What if I end up with 200 and 1000 seeds per? And it won't even get really interesting until the second year. What sprouts, grows and produces in poor soil with no irrigation is primary, my personal preferences have to take second place for at least for awhile.
I guess I will be running multiple things all at the same time. For example after the first year all the sweets will be left to run amok and I'll just select. Except for the Hopi, Painted Mountain and maybe Oxacan among them. They and their descendants probably won't be allowed to contribute pollen for at least a couple of years. Same goes for the Indian Flints and long season things like Cherokee White flour in the corn meal patch. So I guess I will end up with two composites, a sweet and a flour and multiple individual things based on a single strain, don't know what to call them.
I think what I want is to discover the genetics that will produce a crop in less than ideal conditions, minimize if not eliminate for years to come the effect of genetic depression in small populations and lastly, breed or select for that something I and other people will like. It's gonna be fun.
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Post by Joseph Lofthouse on Apr 4, 2015 10:51:12 GMT -5
but if I end up with say 50 of them and get say 300 seeds per that is 15,000 seeds for 2016 patches that can hold 1,500. What if I end up with 200 and 1000 seeds per? I handle this in two ways... First I plant short rows (7 to 20 seeds from my favorite mothers)... Then I plant bulk seed from everything else that was acceptable. That keeps diversity high while still moving the population in the direction I want it to go. |
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Post by reed on Apr 6, 2015 3:18:34 GMT -5
That's what I hope to do to. If I do end up conservatively with 50 mothers x twenty seeds each that fills my patch. Something like that is what I hope for this year for each of the two projects. If I can end up with 50 good ears for each project I'll consider it a great success. I'll have all I need to plant and back up to freeze. I'll document any extra as to mother X (all possible) fathers and send it out to any one that wants it, if no one does the chickens will. After the first two or three years I will pretty much stop keeping track and just select for good qualities.
Four locally grown ears that I liked so much will be a big part of the corn meal patch and although they died when sprayed with roundup I didn't completely trust it so I sent them for lab tests and they came back all negative. I won't go to that expense or of buying seed again.
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Post by reed on Apr 15, 2015 5:53:23 GMT -5
It's getting down to the wire on deciding what to plant. I think I got it about planned out. Sweet patch one will be the homozygous SE's in what I guess could be called a de-hybridizing swarm. There will be room for approximately 150 of them with slight emphasis on the white ones. Mixed in will be about 50 of the drought tolerant Hopi corns, Oaxacan, a little Painted Mountain, maybe also some Magic Manna and Cascade Cream Cap, all de-tasseled.
Sweet patch two has room for about 300 plants with about half being AD and the other a mix of all those others and maybe just a few SE's. Some emphasis will again be on white ones and ones with bigger kernels. I really like the looks of Aunt Mary's for example.
For three or four years, maybe more the seeds from the de-tasseled flints and flours will be planted and de-tasseled again with the seeds form the de-hybridizing SE's. The SU seeds will be left to sort it out for themselves in the second year. Eventually the two patches with the new then drought tolerant SE, some pure SE swarm and the SU swarm will be merged into a single patch. If things go well the new drought tolerant SE may eventually be planted in higher percentage than anything else. Backup seeds at all stages will be documented and frozen as well as distributed to anyone interested.
Still thinking on how to configure the bigger flour / meal patch. I was thinking PM would be a primary foundation there but not sure. From what I can find it has pretty short stalks and not sure I want that in the finished product.
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Post by Joseph Lofthouse on Apr 15, 2015 8:38:45 GMT -5
Painted Mountain is very short-season. That's great if you have a long enough season to plant a different crop before and/or after corn. But if only one crop is planted, then it wastes productivity to plant a short-season crop into a long-season garden. Long season corns may capture more sunlight and put more of it into producing food. When I was selling decorative corn I loved Painted Mountain, because it matured cobs while my market was still open for the season. The plants are small and delicate which makes them more susceptible to animal predation.
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Post by reed on Apr 16, 2015 5:22:35 GMT -5
I really like the short season and the reported drought tolerance of PM but definitely don't want puny little stalks. Wind and coons should help me in selecting those traits out although I have greatly decreased the coon population over the winter. As the project moves on anything that is too short or can't stand up to a storm won't get to contribute pollen.
We have according to some sources about 180 frost free days but that's silly. I'v seen it freeze, not frost, in early May and in mid September so I would guess to be safe around 130 days, not that the 180 isn't possible sometimes. I want to track maturity by the heat units you mentioned because I don't know what the days to maturity on packets and descriptions really means, if anything. I'll have to get a better thermometer and keep my own records cause our weather data comes form the airport at Cincinnati and it is way way wrong.
I got in the back of my mind the idea I might be able to do two generations of at least some kinds in just one year. The second one though will have to sprout in hot dry summer, don't know how that might work but if I have enough seed to risk it I'll find out.
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Post by Joseph Lofthouse on Apr 16, 2015 8:45:03 GMT -5
In my garden, I plant my first crop of normal corn about 3 weeks before our average last frost date, and 5 weeks before I plant out tomatoes. Corn can get some frost and grow fine...
I plant successive crops of sweet corn when the previous crop is about 3" tall. Around here, corn germinates extremely well in hot weather.
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Post by reed on Apr 17, 2015 3:49:23 GMT -5
People here will think I've lost my mind if I plant corn before May but if it is dry enough I think some will go in the ground this weekend. They already think I'm nuts so what the heck.
I was starting to worry this whole affair is a big, long term commitment but we get to eat most of the sweet corn as it goes along. Most of the reject flour can be sold for ornamental or fed to the chickens. So, actually it is little more commitment or effort than someone who grows and saves seeds of a particular "pure" variety. The only difference is the seeds I save each year will be gradually turning into my corn. It's just seed saving without the constraints of preservation.
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Post by DarJones on Apr 17, 2015 10:19:01 GMT -5
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Post by reed on Apr 29, 2015 2:45:52 GMT -5
Corny, certainly applies. It's three thirty in the morning and I'm sitting on the floor sorting seeds into little envelopes so they can go in the ground as soon as the sun comes up. The second sweet patch isn't ready to plant yet but I'm shooting to have the other one and the flour patch done today. Had some other issues that slowed me down a little but back at it now.
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Post by reed on Apr 29, 2015 20:07:18 GMT -5
I planted a little tiny patch back on the 18th just to see what would happen. Wish I had looked at it today before I planted a much larger one rather than after. Some very interesting observations, all of the Indian corns, Painted Mountain, Cascade Cream Cap and White Magic Manna are up today. They sloughed off the little cold snap proving they don't mind cold soil, they poked right through the crust that sometimes forms on my soil, they definitely got traits I want.
The intention in this sweet patch was for these to be detasseled and pollinated by a variety of SE sweets. NONE of which has sprouted yet. Now a much larger patch is all planted all at the same time just as this one was. Maybe I can transplant them to the flour patch and plant some more to go with the sweets. Or even pluck them out and replant new ones in a few days. I have plenty except for the Hopi kinds, Have to be careful with them.
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Post by reed on May 23, 2015 3:55:16 GMT -5
I'm pretty pleased with my corn patches, growing nicely despite almost total lack of rain. Just a few gaps in the flour / meal patch. Most of it is almost a foot tall. When it gets just a little bigger I think I will stick in a few pole bean seeds.
The su patch which is half Astronomy Domonie and half a mix of others is all doing pretty good and competing with the weeds well. I can't till between rows here because of the stumps so whatever makes it and produces will be precious. I am going to need to thin this patch some.
A few of the se sweets are nice strong plants as large as the flour types that they are supposed to pollinate. I guess I can't control it entirely but I have about twenty plants already tagged as ones I hope tassel appropriately to do the job and that I might want seeds from. I didn't really try to coordinate DTM so don't know what I'll end up with tassel / silk wise. Also don't know what I will have as far as homo or hetero zygous-ness of the offspring of detassled flour corn x homozygous se. I figure if it is wrinkled I'll call it sweet and plant it.
Some plants in both of the larger patches seem a little yellow, maybe a nutrition issue? I'm not going to do anything about at as I am after seeds from ones that do well in less than perfect situations.
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Post by reed on Apr 19, 2016 5:02:18 GMT -5
The second year of my corn project is about to get underway, the first patch is soaking on moist paper towels to be planted when I get home tonight. The ground is all ready, I even tilled in some nice composted chicken poo to get it started off good. It's been dry and hot but supposed to rain in a couple days so if the July in April weather holds it should be fine. Got slowed down by having to stop and replace seals on the tiller but got tilling done in all three gardens.
The first round going in is seven rows about fifty feet long. Three rows are SE types 25% each Bodacious RM and Delectable RM and the other 50% a mix of Silver Choice - , Ruby Queen , Spring Snow , Early & Often and Argent.
The last three are a mix of SU types, Fire on the Mountain, Black Aztec, Black Mexican, Golden Bantam, Buhl, Anasazi, Stowell Evergreen, Double Red, Early Sunglow, Luther Hill, Midnight Snack, Astronomy and Blue Jade. This is all left over from last years purchases and planted thick to allow for any not sprouting.
In the middle goes a little, (Oaxacan Green Dent x SE sweet) and (Painted Mountain x sweet mix), some each from F1 and F2 generations. Also just a few seeds from ears saved from the SU mix patch last year and then Astronomy Domine from some special ears last year. Then a few F2 from Ruby Queen and Silver Choice. Rounding out this row is a generous amount of Aunt Mary's.
The outside six rows are mostly to eat although I will look out for anything special that shows up. The middle will be detasseled assuming there is anything in the outside tasseling at the same time to provide pollen.
A second patch of similar size made up entirely of my saved seed from last year will go in right beside it as soon as possible and a third smaller patch of mostly Aunt Mary's will too. Seed from these will be mixed with the other middle row with special attention to anything that matures quick enough to make a second generation this year.
After this season if all or even just some goes well I should have a nice base of archived seed to work with and be able to dispense with keeping track of different types and just start selecting for my preferred phenotype characteristics.
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Post by raymondo on Apr 19, 2016 15:10:13 GMT -5
Hope it goes well this season. Looking forward to reading about the results reed. |
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Post by reed on Apr 26, 2016 7:50:51 GMT -5
The first patch of field corn went in last night. It consists of a lot of the longer season things, the Bid Red ear from the farm market in 2014, some of it's descendants from last year, Suntava, a so called purple corn developed in Minnesota and sold by Burpee, Cherokee White Flour and crosses of it with Big Red and a variety of others saved from last year. A lot of the last mentioned were grown from 2014 Indiana farm market ornamental. I didn't buy any new local ornamental last year because of the expense of getting it GMO tested. I left an empty row in the middle of this patch for shorter season stuff to go in later.
Another patch of shorter to mid season will go in next to it as soon as possible. It will be a good amount of Painted Mountain, some Mandan varieties and twenty or so seeds from each of the ears that I liked and saved last year. Picking through I favored all white kernels, red kernels, chinmarked kernels and large kernels. Maybe 25% or so is more flinty than I may really want but I'm leaving them in for diversity. In coming seasons I will select the flinty and any dented kernels back out.
Seed for next year will be from the second mentioned short season patch mixed with anything that comes form the now empty row to be planted later in the long season patch. Will also be looking to grow two generations in one season if at all possible from the short season patch.
Got the coon traps out and already got a couple, hopefully I can preempt their influence better this year and have some corn to sell as fall decorations as well as saving my favorite for seed.
My goals keep evolving as I learn more. Right now I want an ornamental that matures much sooner than anyone else's so I can be the first one to that market. Then and more importantly I want to select into something that makes good cornbread, hominy and parched corn.
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