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Post by kyredneck on Jun 21, 2015 22:02:12 GMT -5
reed I don't think wood bees are predators, they get on Chinese clover in the spring in a big way. I don't know what that critter is, kinda marked like a hornet but hornets aren't hairy. When we kept chickens I would put Japanese beetle trap less the holding bag inside the pen, the chickens gobbled the comatose beetles down as soon as they hit the ground. One of these hung on a limb overhanging a creek or pond etc works good as a fish attractant too, caught some really nice bluegill on flyrod that way.
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Post by kyredneck on Jun 22, 2015 6:38:29 GMT -5
Japanese beetles bothering the corn a little bit. They seem to like the the su sweet best. Discovered an unexpected ally the other day.  I think it is one of those borer bees that I try to run out of the shed rafters. Never occurred to me it was a predator. On second thought, it may well be a wood bee:
(reassignedtime.blogspot.com/2010/04/home-inspection.html)
I searched to see if they were indeed predators and couldn't come up with anything. But they do raise larvae in the tunnels just as mud dobbers do, and dobbers feed their larvae other insects.
(www.nolanpainting.com/blog/can-carpenter-bees-damage-my-home)
We've been infested with wood bees in the past, they've done a lot of damage to outbuildings. The wife and I put a dent in their population with badminton rackets early one Spring when hundreds of them were feeding on a Chinese clover patch. Also, shooting them with a Red Rider BB gun as they hover in the air makes for some fine redneck entertainment. So far a wood bee trap I purchased has caught nothing. But, diatomaceous earth 'puffed' into their holes has had a big long term affect on their population around here (works good for flea control around the outside dogs sleeping area too).
I got a serious arse chewing from the wife many years ago when she discovered I had used the blender to liquify a concoction with Japanese Beetles to spray on the corn silks. It DID seem to work though, but I didn't catch them in time, the damage was already done.
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Post by reed on Jun 22, 2015 18:36:22 GMT -5
About half of the Oaxacan in the se sweet patch has been detasseled and the first silks appeared on one of them today. A good five feet above the ground so I guess it passes that test too. Several larger and later se plants are tasseling just in time so this cross looks pretty good so far.
I'm learning a lot in my first try at corn breeding, for example I don't think I have to detassel as soon as I have been. I think waiting till it is more developed and farther out of the leaves is probably better so as not to miss any side parts that have to be dug out with tweezers. I think especially for wide crosses I could have gone with smaller more controlled patches, also smaller staggered plantings would have made more available for the table. I realize I don't have to plant all at once in one big patch to get lots of different crosses and diversity for the next year.
Across the road the Indiana farm stand corns are starting to tassel and are very nice healthy looking plants, think the Cherokee White Flour is ready also but no tassels visible yet. No chance of crossing when I plant the next round of late se / AD in the empty spot. The rest of the PM and other small corns are about done over there. I'm pondering on leaving them be to mature or also taking them out and planting more se / su for table and seed.
It's clear that except for Oaxacan nothing is as vigorous as the Indiana corns.
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Post by philagardener on Jun 22, 2015 20:51:16 GMT -5
Japanese beetles bothering the corn a little bit. They seem to like the the su sweet best. Discovered an unexpected ally the other day. I think it is one of those borer bees that I try to run out of the shed rafters. Never occurred to me it was a predator. Great picture of a robber fly! It is a bumble bee mimic and a voracious predator. Note the fleshy pads on the feet - you will never see those on a bee. Check out this page for an exact match. And yes, they like Japanese beetles (although they will eat all kinds of things, including good pollinators too). |
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Post by khoomeizhi on Jun 23, 2015 4:04:07 GMT -5
^yep, distinctly fly antennae, too. true bees and wasps have much longer ones - compare to kyredneck's picture of a carpenter bee up there.
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Post by reed on Jun 27, 2015 5:12:36 GMT -5
All of the Painted Mountain, Cascade Cream Cap and White Manna in the se sweet corn patch were detasseled a while back and are filling out ears. They were pollinated by mostly the earlier se sweets although later ones also tasseled in time to add a little pollen so the seeds should be pretty mixed up on those ears. I guess seeds lower on the ears will be mostly from early pollen and toward the tip from later.
All of the Oaxacan has been detasseled and is now being pollinated by the later se sweets. The Hopi corns are about half detasseled and just one so far has any silks so it will be mostly pollinated by the later sweets. All of the sweets are now tasseling with less of a time gap between them all than the DTM on in their descriptions might have indicated. Even at that there is a noticeable difference in the timing and although I did not intend it that way the various flour corns coincided with different ones of the sweets. I also detasseled a few of the sweet plants so that none of the seeds would be selfed. They and some other particularly nice looking plants are for seed.
Don't have much of a clue of what I will end up with but the first stage, that of crossing various kinds and starting to dehybridize the sweets is well underway.
Now I just need to wait for them to mature and dry down. A lot of the earlier sweets, not tagged for seed saving, will be ready to eat in a couple days.
I have observed before that corn does not necessarily have to dry all the way before it will sprout. I am beginning to wonder if I might pull off a second generation this year of some of these crosses. It might be pushing it but if I can get mature looking seed by the end of July I think I'll give it a try.
Just for kicks I took some se pollen over and tossed it on the breeze above the su patch.
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Post by reed on Jun 27, 2015 9:28:37 GMT -5
Found the first of Joseph Lofthouse 's melons today. Might be more down in there but it's very wet out and didn't shuffle around in the patch to look. Kind of oblong one with less fuzzy skin about the size of a small egg.  More roundish one with fuzzy skin about the size of a golf ball.  Anxiously waiting to see how they taste. |
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Post by kyredneck on Jun 27, 2015 10:46:27 GMT -5
Storm flattened my little patch of Cascade Cream Cap and Ruby Gold, looks like a Sherman tank went through it. It had just started tasseling. Any suggestions? When it quits raining I thought I might try driving a post at the end of each row, stretch a string and lift the stalks one by one and secure to the string.
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Post by jondear on Jun 27, 2015 13:19:38 GMT -5
Somewhere there's a thread that someone mentions doing the string thing reed. Iirc they said it worked well for them. I've realized that I may have lodging problems in my dry corn crop. I planted basically north-south, not considering the prevailing wind will blow from the west, crossways to the rows. It's not tall enough yet to worry about yet, but it'll probably happen  Melons are looking good too. Mine are getting a good going over by cucumber beetles. I'll be surprised if I get much of a harvest. |
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Post by kyredneck on Jun 27, 2015 15:37:32 GMT -5
I'm in the thick of it now, come in to take a break. I think it was one of those micro down blasts (or whatever they call it) from a storm the other night, it downed several large branches on the property also. There's a lot of broken stalks, maybe the ears will still get pollinated if I get it all upright. It wouldn't be real hard for me to say the heck with it right now, but I'm gonna do it just to see.
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Post by philagardener on Jun 27, 2015 19:14:57 GMT -5
Sorry to hear the weather is being a challenge for you too. We had a severe front go through the mid-Atlantic earlier this week and it left more folks without electricity than following Superstorm Sandy. My garden did OK but lots of trees came down in the area and are still being cleaned up. One step at time.
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Post by reed on Jun 27, 2015 19:17:06 GMT -5
The string idea sounds like it might work. I'v been lucky when it comes to the lodging issue. Just a stalk here and there for the most part and I just stood them back up and leaned them on their neighbor. The Hopi did all lodge pretty bad awhile back but much to my surprise it stood back up on its own. For the most part I detasseled the ones that lodged, just in case.
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Post by reed on Jun 28, 2015 5:18:30 GMT -5
Well I am not very hopeful of getting seeds from the walking onions. The flowers are mostly dried up but there doesn't appear to be anything in the little pod structures. The patch at the little pioneer house garden I gave them to a few years ago has a larger patch and lots more flowers, I'm going to go down there today and check those.
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Post by reed on Jun 30, 2015 7:32:37 GMT -5
EEK! not only are there not any seeds on the onions at the pioneer house, the plants all have ugly yellow splotches. That's something else I 'v never seen before. Ran in the house and washed my hands real good when I got home. The tops on the garlic have straightened out and are opening with normal looking little bulbs but also some FLOWERS! Maybe they will do better than the onions.
I wonder if the last two winters with sub-zero temps caused the flowering somehow.
Found some more little melons, now to keep my fingers crossed they actually mature.
Tons and tons of green tomatoes several plants with what I believe are open flowers but I have not observed any bees on them.
Lots and lots of runner bean flowers but in the entire row I'v found a grand total of two set pods. Planted several kinds but only two flower types all red and red / white.
Have a volunteer squash on a bush type plant, it looks like a big round zucchini. I'll get a picture of it posted and maybe someone will have guess what it might be.
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Post by reed on Jul 1, 2015 17:10:38 GMT -5
Here is the flour corn patch. The short stuff in front is PM, CCC, and a couple others. Most of the rest are the Indiana market corns from last year. There are probably altogether about 350 plants from the Big Red ear and out of them about half a dozen have very dark red / purple stalks. There is some Cherokee White flour mixed in there too and they all seem to be flowering together. Not too worried about the short stuff crossing because it was so much earlier. If I want those crosses I'll have to time planting next year. The white post and another at the other end mark the detassel row with a selection of flour and flints.  |
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