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Post by steev on Feb 3, 2018 4:30:18 GMT -5
Do you think your aphid issues are due to lack of alternative "pastures".
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Post by esoteric_agriculture on Feb 3, 2018 7:32:30 GMT -5
I found in general the K’uyu Chuspi to be very disease resistant, basically they were nearly if not totally clean. I had planted mine in two separate patches to try and maximize chances for crosses with other corn, or, to have multiple chances to attempt to induce flowering. I originally had planned to build some sort of shade structure over the Chuspi to attempt to induce flowering, of course I never got around to that, but, it did flower somewhat anyway. One of the two patches was heavily infested with aphids, to the point that so much sooty mold and shed exoskeletons built up in the leaf axils at the growing point that the growing tips rotted off and died. The other patch had no aphid issues. I crossed mine with Bronze Beauty Flint, Double Red Sweet Corn, and my own dehybrididized se sweet corn strain.
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Post by nkline on Feb 3, 2018 14:21:29 GMT -5
I also grew K’uyu Chuspi Corn this year, I believe 2 plants tasseled for me. One plant even silked, but the silk and tassel times did not line up well, I only got 2 pure Chuspi kernels. I did however get lots of crosses with both sweet and Flint Corn I am very excited to grow out this year. Hello! Very similar story with my K'uyu. I have a big ash tree in my yard and planted the K'uyu in the afternoon shade line. It did trick a few stalks into thinking daylength was decreasing, so I ended up with ok tassel times at 90 days from direct sow. But the silking was more erratic. I had only one stalk that tasseled and silked within a week of itself, and was able to get a small ear's worth of selfed K'uyu from it. Not ideal, but I'll take it. The rest crossed with Painted Mountain and with White Nighting dent. The offspring are currently growing and a little under a foot tall. I'm also excited to see how our crosses do -- please keep us posted! Apart from the silking issue, how was K'uyu's tolerance to disease/pests for you? Mine were a favorite of aphid farming ants, so much so that they never even touched the painted mountain and only bothered one stalk of the Nighting. The aphids went absolutely bananas on the K'uyu. There is a metabolic trade off for corn defending against aphids(suckling insects vs. other pests like worms. So if your plant developed in a no aphid environment they may not have resistance to them, but may have great resistance against corn borer or root worm or something like that. |
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Day
gardener
When in doubt, grow it out.
Posts: 171
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Post by Day on Feb 3, 2018 15:12:24 GMT -5
Do you think your aphid issues are due to lack of alternative "pastures". Extremely possible. My neighbor to the left has only OCD manicured lawns, pond, summer sprinklers, uses tons of fertilizer and probably pesticides, etc. My neighbor to the right grows dirt, sand, some old car parts, and weed in a little pop-up grow tent next to their bbq. So my garden is pretty much an organic oasis buffet. One stop shopping. I crossed mine with Bronze Beauty Flint, Double Red Sweet Corn, and my own dehybrididized se sweet corn strain. If you took any photos, I'd be infinitely curious to see the cobs/kernels, especially the sweet crossed ones. Mine weren't particularly interesting: Nighting looked like Nighting, just with purple specks, and same with Painted. I swore I took pictures, but I've been digging around in my folders for 20 minutes now and can't find any  There is a metabolic trade off for corn defending against aphids(suckling insects vs. other pests like worms. So if your plant developed in a no aphid environment they may not have resistance to them, but may have great resistance against corn borer or root worm or something like that. That's a really good point, and reminds of something else of note on K'uyu -- the husks! They were like vaults. I thought the cobs were going to be the size of footballs based on how big the husks were. Probably a good inch or more of just layered husk, very tight on the top, no way bugs were getting in. That said, many of the silks never came out either. The one that I selfed did stick some silks out by itself, but not enough to make me comfortable... so I cut the tip off so the rest could come out freely. |
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Post by esoteric_agriculture on Feb 3, 2018 16:42:06 GMT -5
. I crossed mine with Bronze Beauty Flint, Double Red Sweet Corn, and my own dehybrididized se sweet corn strain. If you took any photos, I'd be infinitely curious to see the cobs/kernels, especially the sweet crossed ones. Mine weren't particularly interesting: Nighting looked like Nighting, just with purple specks, and same with Painted. I swore I took pictures, but I've been digging around in my folders for 20 minutes now and can't find any [img class="smile" . [/quote] Hi Day, I haven’t taken any pictures as of yet. I will try to get some pictures and make a video sometime soon. I haven’t shelled out any seed corn yet, everything is still hanging in a shed. I seem to recall that basically everything crossed with the Chuspi showed purple speckles. I will second your observation of the extremely tight husk coverage on the K’uyu Chuspi, I too had expected very long ears based on the outward appearance, but it was just layers and layers of husks. |
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Post by esoteric_agriculture on Feb 3, 2018 21:03:39 GMT -5
Also, Day, I managed to cross Papa’s Red Flour with Cherokee White Flour this year. Papa’s Red is basically a strain of Painted Mountain selected for pure, solid ear colors. I am unsure currently about what if anything to to do with this - intially I wanted a mid season , strong stalked red flour/parching corn. I was quite disappointed at how severe the disease issues were on the Papa’s Red, so , still not sure.
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Day
gardener
When in doubt, grow it out.
Posts: 171
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Post by Day on Feb 4, 2018 14:11:30 GMT -5
esoteric_agriculture - That would be awesome, I'd love to see them. Even if the cobs/kernels aren't terribly different, I think it would be a great resource for posterity, at the least. Concerning husks, I think the K'uyu husks are overkill, but still, it could be an extremely useful trait to breed into a variety that otherwise produces well, but has a tendency of the ends of the cobs to stick out of the husks. I'm told Painted Mountain does that on occasion, though I've been lucky with my gene pool so far and haven't seen any instances of it. Regardless, maybe the Painted X K'uyu crosses might benefit each other in ways I hadn't previously thought. I considered growing Papa's white instead Painted Mountain the original, because I knew I would be crossing with K'uyu and wanted to make sure the hybrid kernels were easily visible. I didn't know how 'powerful' the purple aleurone speckling would be, so I thought going with a straight white flour would be safest. I ended up going with the traditional Painted Mountain only because it would be my first time growing corn in my new, devoid of nutrients, hot as an oven, sandbox back yard. I wanted the strong son of a bitch corn I could find XD And even though the Papa's line is derived from Painted, I wasn't sure it'd be as strong and genetically variable as the parent, etc. I'd like to pick your brain a bit more on the Cherokee White Flour. You mention a strong stalked, red parching corn goal -- I assume Papa's was for red and the apparently better taste of red when parched. So it's Cherokee that has the good stalks then? Though I didn't have lodging issues with Painted because they stayed so small, the stalks weren't nearly as thick as I'd hopes. I introduced white nighting into my gene pool (even though it is a dent) specifically because it has shown very strong stalks and good resistance to lodging in my friend's yard (and because it was white, for easy kernel finding XD). But I'd much prefer to keep the gene pool flour exclusively, so I'm very curious about other genetic sources for strong stalked flour types.
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Post by esoteric_agriculture on Feb 4, 2018 15:12:21 GMT -5
Day,
What follows are generalizations, and, I am not an expert on this. There is a large complex of similar and certainly closely related tall, long season white flour corn varieties from the eastern USA. It seems like nearly every tribe has/had their own strain. They are typically very tall ( 8-15’), very late season, and seem much better adapted to the disease and wind of the East. If you know corns like Gourdseed or Hickory King, the plant overall has lots of similarities. The stalks of the Cherokee White Flour I grew were plenty strong, none blew over, even in some very serious winds. One thing I have been considering really just the past few days is that perhaps the reason the western flour corns seem to have such terrible stalk strength is that disease ( stalk rots) are so ubiquitous on them that all the stalks are so weakened that they all collapse. Not sure, seems plausible though.
I had wanted to make a strong stalked, productive red parching corn. I am seriously rethinking that , because first of all, I currently doubt I can detect flavor differences based on colors, and, I parched some flour corn of red and white both, several techniques each, and have found I really dislike parched corn. I have some videos on my channel showing these corns in fairly great detail, but, they were some of the first ones I made, and at this point I’m embarrassed at how many stupid editing/production errors there are. The information factor is still great, just bear with me in the early months...🤪
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Day
gardener
When in doubt, grow it out.
Posts: 171
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Post by Day on Feb 5, 2018 20:34:14 GMT -5
esoteric_agriculture - Very useful knowledge, thank you for sharing! I'll be sure to check out those videos. And fear not, there's no video judgement here! I'm here for the information, not for any suave editing, I assure you.  You could use crazy zoom and swirly transitions for all care, so long as the pictures are clear and the information is good, I'm a happy camper.
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Post by oxbowfarm on Feb 7, 2018 12:27:18 GMT -5
esoteric_agriculture speaks truth, although there are strains of 6-Nations White Flour from Canada which are very short, and very short season (available through GRIN). But the 8-row Eastern White flour corn is a spectrum of quite clearly related strains that are more similar than they are different. Generally they are mostly white, 8-10 row and are strongly single stalked/low tillering with ears held well up off the ground. The other big quality they share is a very excellent resistance to ear and stalk rots. Most of them are fairly susceptible to Northern Leaf Blight and Common Rust, but that's generally true of every Native American 8-row corn I've ever grown. For flour corns grown in a humid climate ie anywhere east of the dry-line in North America, they are much superior to western/southwestern flour corns like Painted Mtn.
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Post by reed on Feb 7, 2018 14:28:26 GMT -5
esoteric_agriculture speaks truth, although there are strains of 6-Nations White Flour from Canada which are very short, and very short season (available through GRIN). But the 8-row Eastern White flour corn is a spectrum of quite clearly related strains that are more similar than they are different. Generally they are mostly white, 8-10 row and are strongly single stalked/low tillering with ears held well up off the ground. The other big quality they share is a very excellent resistance to ear and stalk rots. Most of them are fairly susceptible to Northern Leaf Blight and Common Rust, but that's generally true of every Native American 8-row corn I've ever grown. For flour corns grown in a humid climate ie anywhere east of the dry-line in North America, they are much superior to western/southwestern flour corns like Painted Mtn. , do you know names and or sources to acquire these 8 - 10 row Eastern White Flour corns you speak of? Is by chance the absolutely beautiful Oxbowfarm white flour grex related to them? Is it a large and long season corn, similar to Cherokee White Flour? |
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Post by oxbowfarm on Feb 7, 2018 15:21:58 GMT -5
My Oxbow White Flour Grex is basically built on a foundation mix of several strains of Tuscarora/Cherokee White Flour with a significant admixture of Cargill North Temperate Zone Coroico added in for its humidity/fungal/rot resistance as well as its outstanding resistance to Norhern Leaf Blight. I have been deliberately selecting AWAY from 8-row simply because many of the Native American cultures hold these corns as sacred, and I don't want to create a mixture/composite/grex that might be mistaken for one, out of respect. At various times I've also included CNTZ Carribbean, CNTZ Tuxpeño, Schroeder Strain Hickory King, and I'm currently actively trying to add in genetics from Zapalote Chico. Grin accession that are included in my grex and which I found useful that are from this Easter White Flour group include Ames 2757, NSL 202125, Ames 22650, Ames 24975Rowen White at Sierra Seeds sells a very good strain of Tuscarora/Irroquois White Flour, Southern Exposure has a really nice (although too long season for me) strain of Cherokee WF. |
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Post by oxbowfarm on Feb 8, 2018 7:50:45 GMT -5
Actually , I looked at Sierra Seeds website and it is hard to see if you can actually order seeds from them right now or not. Seems like they are mostly doing classes and stuff and have a "seed CSA". I'm sure if you contacted her though you could arrange to buy some or she could connect you with a source for a good strain of it. |
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Post by reed on Feb 8, 2018 9:25:58 GMT -5
Thanks oxbowfarm for all the info and education. I didn't know much about the eastern flour corns. The GRIN page has clues as to where to look up more about them. My strain of CWF came from a seed trade down in KY and is too long season as well. I think the fellow I got it from might be the supplier for Southern Exposure. Sounds like with the addition of your white corn I am getting a very good addition into my mix. Glad to know more about it cause of instead of just adding it in at random I think I'll keep it in a block of its own and not de-tassel any of it. In 2015 I had a good sized patch of Painted Mountain, nearly all of which molded badly up and down the ears between the kernels. Only five or so ears from the whole patch of around 200 plants were good enough to keep. I thought it was just because it was a very damp season but now I know that probably wasn't the only reason. I got those seeds around here somewhere. Might be fun to de-tassel them and pollinate with your strain. |
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Post by reed on Feb 17, 2018 15:03:52 GMT -5
oxbowfarm, I happened on some of your youtube videos and enjoyed them very much. You may have answered already in ones I haven't seen yet but how did the Zapolte Chico do? Was it really resistant to ear worms?
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You could use crazy zoom and swirly transitions for all care, so long as the pictures are clear and the information is good, I'm a happy camper.