|
|
Post by reed on Nov 18, 2017 6:19:29 GMT -5
I'm curious about other experience with Joseph's Neandercorn. I fell in love with it, I think it is the most fun to grow corn I'v ever had. I ended up with three kinds. Early, which is mixed with my other grain corn and also with Joseph's Harmony grain corn. Early sweet, which is just sweet kernels that happened to show up on four Neander plants and Late, which is from two plants that tasseled and silked too late to mix with the other grain corns or with the other Neander. Their tassels died before they made any silks but then they grew enough tassels on ears to pollinate themselves and each other. That and some pollen I brought over from a late planted patch in the other garden. Here are ears from the early mixed patch.  Here is one of the late plants.  I posted about it over on my thread earlier but thought it deserved it's own cause it is sooo cool. Did anybody else grow it? |
|
|
|
Post by Joseph Lofthouse on Nov 18, 2017 9:50:10 GMT -5
reed: Thanks for the grow report. I grew Neandercorn this year. Hmm. I haven't processed the seeds yet, I suppose that I should go on a search and rescue to see if I can find it. I can provide a pedigree for those sweet kernels: I grew 5 different races of South American corns, and de-tasseled them so they got pollinated by Astronomy Dominie, which is descended from a couple hundred varieties of North American sweet corn. Then I reselected for sweet corn. That shared some pollen with Neandercorn which originated as a hybrid between Zea mays and Zea diploperennis. 
|
|
|
|
Post by richardw on Nov 18, 2017 12:36:43 GMT -5
So how tall is that plant reed, ears just about to the top, amazing looking plant. |
|
|
|
Post by reed on Nov 18, 2017 16:26:15 GMT -5
Thant's what's so fun about it. It just flat don't care where it grows it's ears and tassels, they stick out all over the place. It isn't huge, the plant in the picture is probably around 8 feet.
|
|
|
|
Post by richardw on Nov 18, 2017 18:23:15 GMT -5
Stay tall enough though
|
|
|
|
Post by keen101 (Biolumo / Andrew B.) on Nov 19, 2017 17:46:52 GMT -5
I didn't grow it this year. But i was the one who originally requested it from the USDA GRIN system as a Zea diploperennis x Zea mays hybrid. I found it along with some other teosinte seeds i had requested awhile ago so i sent most of it to joseph to play around with. I saved a few kernels to try growing myself last year but they didn't grow all that well. I did get one small cob that i saved (but now have misplaced somewhere) that i think was either selfed or pollinated by zea mexicana pollen. The other cob i saved and still have i tried to pollinate with whatever corn pollen i could find. The best i could do was what was probably a field corn with no apparent GMO signs. The kernels look like flour corn. Need to try planting it sometime. I would love to have someone try crossing zea diploperrenis and zea mexicana together. OR try backcrossing the Neander corn to zea mexicana. But i don't know if joseph has had any success with zea diploperrennis roots growing after the first year (even dug up and saved in a greenhouse?). I think it would be cool to backcross a purple or other colored corn to teosinte kernel shape but with purple or other colored kernels. Also would be neat to breed modern corn with the green or gray speckled teosinte seed coat colors.
p.s. those are quite the cool looking plants! I especially like the teosinte genes for the pollen tassels coming out of the top of the cobs themselves!!! I've seen that only once in a modern corn, but it was rare.
|
|
|
|
Post by Joseph Lofthouse on Nov 19, 2017 17:53:44 GMT -5
I can keep Zea diploperennis roots alive some years in a root-pit. They still don't flower the second year. I'd have to use the artificial darkness trick, or heat my greenhouse during cold weather.
|
|
|
|
Post by keen101 (Biolumo / Andrew B.) on Nov 19, 2017 18:14:23 GMT -5
I can keep Zea diploperennis roots alive some years in a root-pit. They still don't flower the second year. I'd have to use the artificial darkness trick, or heat my greenhouse during cold weather. What about the third year? Are they biannual like carrots? |
|
|
|
Post by Joseph Lofthouse on Nov 19, 2017 18:50:03 GMT -5
Zea diploperennis flowers every year in my garden. However, the flowers don't show up until mid-November. By then, there isn't enough warm weather for them to mature seed.
|
|
|
|
Post by diane on Nov 19, 2017 19:28:46 GMT -5
A houseplant!
|
|
|
|
Post by Joseph Lofthouse on Nov 19, 2017 19:34:36 GMT -5
I managed to kill them as a houseplant last year. I'm intending to try again this year. The tops of the plants are being killed a little bit at a time by frost. |
|
|
|
Post by reed on Nov 20, 2017 11:32:34 GMT -5
Now I'm wondering if I should get some pure Zea diploperennis and see how it does here. Sounds fun but might be more than I can chew specially since I'm pretty happy with what I got going now. From the pedigree diagram Joseph Lofthouse posted above looks like lots of new stuff got added into my mixes this year. I already have Astronomy Domine and Painted Painted Mountain mixed into both my sweet and field corns. Now with the addition of Harmony and Neandercorn I have all those South American races. I also have several modern SE corns especially if advertised as disease resistant, in both mixes. With only about a 1/4 acre to plant, I don't know if I can handle much more. I definitely will continue blending in the Neandercorn, especially in the field corn patch (changed my mind on that) and those sweet kernels are definitely getting planted as well. I love the branched growth habit and the production of many ears per stalk. Maybe I should keep the jury out for awhile cause I only grew it one season but I'm thinking Neandercorn might become a foundation of both my corns. I actually had or should have had quite a bit more Neandercorn but squirrels and crows were starting to attack so I harvested earlier than was probably optimal, some ears were far from mature. I think that's ok though cause the Neandercorn plants kept making new ears, they didn't just make some and stop so I got mature seed from most plants anyway. Due to the critters I think I inadvertently selected for faster maturity and I'm fine with that. |
|
|
|
Post by reed on Feb 11, 2018 9:35:14 GMT -5
Zea diploperennis flowers every year in my garden. However, the flowers don't show up until mid-November. By then, there isn't enough warm weather for them to mature seed. Does this mean planted from seed? When do you plant the seeds, April? May? I really want to cross the Zea diploperennis you sent me with sweet corn. I think I have higher GDD and longer frost free season. I wonder if I might pull off a cross with a late planted short season sweet corn. Even if in the first year I have to dig the plants up and bring them in the house. Some more observations on Neandercorn in my garden this year. The stalks were thin but very strong, there was no lodging at all. Leaves were nice dark green with no sign of any kind of disease. Although tassel ears would seem to invite ear worms I saw very few. Only downside is it appears to be more attractive to crows than about any corn I'v seen, I'll have to figure out something to do about that. |
|
|
|
Post by keen101 (Biolumo / Andrew B.) on Feb 12, 2018 11:23:18 GMT -5
Zea diploperennis flowers every year in my garden. However, the flowers don't show up until mid-November. By then, there isn't enough warm weather for them to mature seed. Does this mean planted from seed? When do you plant the seeds, April? May? I really want to cross the Zea diploperennis you sent me with sweet corn. I think I have higher GDD and longer frost free season. I wonder if I might pull off a cross with a late planted short season sweet corn. Even if in the first year I have to dig the plants up and bring them in the house. Some more observations on Neandercorn in my garden this year. The stalks were thin but very strong, there was no lodging at all. Leaves were nice dark green with no sign of any kind of disease. Although tassel ears would seem to invite ear worms I saw very few. Only downside is it appears to be more attractive to crows than about any corn I'v seen, I'll have to figure out something to do about that. I think you should try it! Zea diploperrennis is hard to cross because it is programmed to late fall daylength. You would need to either plant it early in conjunction with covering it many weeks with a trash bag to trick it into tasseling early or just do the trashbag by itself. In conjunction with a very early corn sounds like a brilliant idea. In addition you may consider pampering the soil spot for zea diploperrenis with extra soft tilled soil and extra fertilized for potentially faster growth. It would be clever if a crossed zea diploperrenis with an early day neutral corn were backcrossed with zea diploperrenis in an attempt to breed perrenial traits into corn or breed a day nuetral perrenial teosinte. |
|
|
|
Post by keen101 (Biolumo / Andrew B.) on Feb 12, 2018 11:28:42 GMT -5
I'd like to start a sub discussion on the merits of using teosinte introgression to corn sinilar to the wild tomato breeding project. What merits do you see? I personally think the tassels above the top of the cobs are very clever and could potentially help reduce unpollinated ears. Reed seems to maybe like the high branching and side cobs? Are there any other merits? I also thing it would be cool to transfer the gray mottled or green mottled seed coat pattern from teosinte into modern maize and also cool to backcross a colored flint corn seed coat into teisinte. P.s. reed you can edit the subject line of your original post if you want the thread to have the missing letter "r" for neandercorn. |
|
