Neandercorn

[reed]

Yup, Neandercorn is fun stuff to grow. All mine this year came out sweet cause I detasseled and pollinated with sweet. I still got lots from last year though that doesn't have sweet in it. I'm thinking of adding it into my field corn next year. It's fun to see differences in growing seasons, I planted, harvested and ate a patch of bush beans in the spot where mine grew earlier in the season. 

The Z dip is fun too. I never got around to covering it and it still has not bloomed so probably not gonna get any seeds this year. Here is what it looked like today. 



That post is seven feet so it isn't a small plant. There behind it is the smaller plant I divided off earlier in the year. I trimmed both up quite a bit before and more after taking the picture. Also dug up part of the smaller plant to inspect the roots. I didn't find any rhizomes but man did I find roots. Big thick masses of roots, so many it was hard to cut through em and they run a long way from the plant.  I think I might dig up part of the smaller one and keep it as a house plant. 

My  thinking on remaking an F1 with Z dip as mother was to preserve the perennial nature in case it is maternal. If it is perennial in my climate I will certainly find out next spring and I can try again. And if it is, keeping it under control may become a priority.  

[reed]

I looked back in the thread and saw that I started my z dip plant around the end of February. So it had 120 days of growth by middle of June. The main plant is now in second week of October well over 12 feet tall and finally starting to tassel, but no silks yet.

The secondary plant that was severed from the main plant a long time ago has been kept trimmed back to control it's height. I just cut down any stalks that try to get over four feet or so. Happy to see that the shorter stalks on this plant are also tasseling.

It seems like I saw somewhere where day's of less than 12 hours is what it took to spark flowering. I looked up day length for my location and it fell to below 12 hours on September 26, and 12 days later I have tassels. I don't know how important it is to be precise on these things but I'm happy to know what it does if left to it's own devices.

I never did get around to covering it but now that I know it will flower even if kept at a manageable size I hope to try again next year. I'm going to dig up the smaller plant and attempt to keep it as a house plant. If it shows multiple silks I will bag some of them and try to pollinate with the sweet corn pollen I still have in the freezer and self pollinate the others. Maybe I can get a seed or two that way.

I hope to find out if it can be kept alive as a house plant even if it doesn't make any seeds. If it can then I'll replant it next year, keep it cut back to a workable size and cover it to induce flowering. I'll leave the big plant in the ground and find out if it is hardy in my climate but I don't really expect that.

If all else fails I'll look into getting more seed cause I really want to make the new F1 with it as mother. I'v actually completely changed my mind on the sweet corn though. Instead I want to try to cross it both ways with the zap chico four corn alanbishop.proboards.com/thread/9357/zapalote-chico?page=1&scrollTo=130111. 

[keen101 (Biolumo / Andrew B.)]

Cool! Go for it!

From when I've grown it it seems related more to day length rather than needing more than 120 days to grow.

[reed]

It was two weeks ago when I found tassels on the z dip, it hasn't frosted here yet but still no silks. I'm pretty sure the no silks is because it doesn't silk. I guess I just assumed it would since it can cross with modern corn but the little side shoots up and down the stalks where I thought I would see silks are just making more tassels.

So I don't think the tassels are like corn tassels. They are branching out a little and remind me more of the seed heads on Johnson grass. None of them have opened up to release anything I could identify as pollen, at least not yet. How to go about about crossing it to corn in either direction is going to take some effort.

I dug up the smaller plant and will get it potted up to bring in. It has massive dense roots but nothing that looks like a rhizome. Maybe it's tassels or what ever they are will open up and reveal the flower structure.

[keen101 (Biolumo / Andrew B.)]

Oct 20, 2018 7:36:39 GMT -5 reed said:

It was two weeks ago when I found tassels on the z dip, it hasn't frosted here yet but still no silks. I'm pretty sure the no silks is because it doesn't silk. I guess I just assumed it would since it can cross with modern corn but the little side shoots up and down the stalks where I thought I would see silks are just making more tassels.

So I don't think the tassels are like corn tassels. They are branching out a little and remind me more of the seed heads on Johnson grass. None of them have opened up to release anything I could identify as pollen, at least not yet. How to go about about crossing it to corn in either direction is going to take some effort.

I dug up the smaller plant and will get it potted up to bring in. It has massive dense roots but nothing that looks like a rhizome. Maybe it's tassels or what ever they are will open up and reveal the flower structure.

Hmm. I'm pretty sure i got tassels and silks once and the other time i didn't or tassels. Are the signs of silking unusually close to the tassels by any chance?

I wonder if silking is very delayed to encourage out crossing?

[reed]

Got a question maybe folks can help me with. I have the smaller z dip plant in a pot, it seems fine sitting on the south facing patio and covered at night during recent light frosts. I'm considering two options for bringing it in for winter.

1 - Put it in the south facing living room window and just keep it like a house plant. I think that would probably work but it is not a popular option with the living room administrator.

2 - Put it in the unheated upstairs room and keep it on the dry side to try to make it go dormant till spring.

Any thoughts? Especially on whether option 2 would work?

[oxbowfarm]

Option 2 seems possible, but I don't really know what the native habitat for Z. dip is. Lots of grass species go dormant when it is dry, it seems like an easier method than trying to keep it green and growing (if it works).

[walt]

Z. dip's native habitat is cloud forest. I.e. high altitude foggy much of the time. I have doubts of it going dormant and surviving.
That said, I have never tried making it go dormant and bringing it out again.
You might remove a piece of rhizome and save it in a small pot, taking up less room, and try letting the rest of the plant go dormant.
I always found Z. dip needs more water than other corns, as did its F2s. Due to its cloud forest origion, I think. Is that other people's experience?

[Joseph Lofthouse]

I had Z diploperennis survive in a root pit one year. It didn't survive the next year. I tried overwintering it in a pot, but in a very bad place, and not taken care of well, so it didn't survive. It hasn't survived outside in USDA zone 4b.

[reed]

Thanks everybody for the input. I think I'll go with the unheated room upstairs but keep it watered instead of trying to force dormancy. Just have to be careful to not over water and cause rot. It never gets below 50 in there I don't think, and has big east widows for morning light. I sleep in there a lot in the winter(among the seeds)cause the cold is much more comfortable to me, so I'll not forget to keep an eye on it.

The big plant has endured several frosts with little effect, I imagine a real freeze will kill it. Will be interesting to see if it lives but if it does I'll have to move it out of the garden proper or it might try to take over the place. 

[walt]

A real freeze will kill it to the ground.  I think the rhizomes would survive as long as the soil doesn't freeze.  That's opinion.  I haven't checked.

[keen101 (Biolumo / Andrew B.)]

reed! I have an idea! Apparently you only need to cover one leaf on each plant to get them to flower early! I think this would work on non-day-neutral teosinte!

www.google.com/podcasts?feed=aHR0cDovL2l0dW5lc2NvbnRlbnQudWNkYXZpcy5lZHUvbWVkaWEvMjAwOS9XSS9QTEIxMTIvMTAwLnJzcw&episode=aHR0cDovL2l0dW5lc2NvbnRlbnQudWNkYXZpcy5lZHUvbWVkaWEvMjAwOS9XSS9QTEIxMTIvUExCMTEyLTFfMjAwOS0wMy0wNS5tcDM

This course, taught by UC Davis plant biology professor John Harada, focuses on the mechanisms and control processes that underlie plant growth, development and response to the environment, with primary attention devoted to flowering plants. Topics are selected to emphasize developmental concepts applicable to several aspects of plant growth and development. Material is presented by discussing experiments employing the approaches of morphology, physiology, genetics, and cell and molecular biology that were used to discover the biological information. (The course is targeted to upper division undergraduate students who have taken an introductory biology course and a genetics course. The audience is primarily general biology majors who do not specialize on plants.)

"Podcast" plant growth and development winter 2009, episode #4, transition to flowering.

[reed]

Thank's keen101 (Biolumo / Andrew B.), that's good to know. I'm shifting my corn projects almost exclusively to a couple new projects but I am keeping the z dip going too if I can. The plant I took in not looking the happiest but it is holding on. All I need come spring is some live roots and I think I may have them.