Out of curiosity, how do potatoes compete with corn on your priority list?
Potatoes are slightly lower priority than Astronomy Domine, about equal priority with hybrid sweet corn, and higher priority than other types of corn.
My high priority seed crops are:Astronomy Domine
su/se hybrid corn
Tomatoes
Muskmelons
Moschatas
Potatoes
My medium priority seed crops are:peas
radishes
Walking onions
Open pollinated sugary enhanced corn
corn breeding projects
snap/dry beans
Watermelon
garlic
My low priority seed crops are:beets
carrots
broccoli
zucchini
bok choi
sunroots
croockneck
Swiss chard
yellow onions
hybrid swarms
pepo winter squash
short season maxima
C. melo: non muskmelons
white globe purple top turnips
winter wheat-like grasses
sweet peppers
Indian corn
cucumbers
parsnips
cilantro
parsley
chives
Very interesting post Joseph as well as reasoning, I don't think I've made a list until now myself but thought it might be appropriate as our breeding methods and programs are similar and yet unique in their own ways
The only major differnces I see are in your selection for mostly market crops (very important here as well, but not as much as they once were due to looming economic and socio-political collapse)
My High Priority sees are:
Amanda Palmer dent corn - The single most hardy crop I have or likely will ever grow. All the advantages of tall southern dents of cullinary quality with much higher protein while being considerably more short season than most (90-110 days depending on selection). This I foresee being the major lifeline of my sustainable farm and market as I need protein with little input to feed to birds in small inputs to create protein. Granted I could just eat or sale the corn and beans, however I'm not a vegetarian and ocassionally feel I deserve a good "Viking fest" of meat! Storage quality. Though we don't sale much of it at market it only takes education of customers and public to create a market (same for dry beans and edamame)
Barley, Wheat, Oats: Same as corn essentially plus cover crop qualities. Avena Nuda also makes itself a great additive for other endeavors such as soap making.
Black Dog and other Dry Beans: Filling the protein gap here, I have stuggled for years with growing beans to fruition of any type due to the overabundance of mexican bean beetles locally. I don't spray any type of pesticides anymore, even homemade, as I'm attempting to balance systems instead of fight against them, thus beans become very hard to gain reward from, but through simple selection I have found a couple of dry soup beans that can and do produce alongside the bean beetles and after a couple years of heavy infestation of the farm the beneficials are starting to move in to take care of the infestation, as well the ducks and turkeys are becoming trained to early morning bug cereal protein walks! Storage Quality
Potatoes: Easy, quick, low input, diverse, and lots of uses, that said, little to nothing eats a colorado potato beetle on this farm so they are hand picked and squished.
Mostly saving tubers, but when seed presents itself I put it to use. Storage Quality and market sales
Edamame: Animals and Human protein again. Storage quality and market sales
C. Moshcata Squash: No insect issues, good production, good storage, good market sales; win, win.
Tomatoes: Easy to can, easy to sale, easy to use in bulk, easy to sale in bulk, diversity of uses.
Cucumbers: Essentially same reason as Tomatoes and like tomatoes full of vitamins and essential amino acids.
Lettuce, Spinach, Chard, Kale, Collards: human and animal foods, easy to save seed from, tons of diversity. Sales
Turnips:Stroability and I love them, greens are good bird forage, roots and greens are great for hogs. Beets are in this category as well.
Tobacco: As things get worse it becomes worth it's weight in gold. As well there is an unexploited market locally and nationally for organic specialty tobaccos which will only grow with time.
Melons: What can I say, there isn't much I love more than a melon and I can sell the crap out of them, including watermelons.
C. Pepo winter Sqaush: I don't even really bother with saving "summer squash" seed anymore, these do fine at the young stage for the same purposes and provide a quick producing source of fall nutrition and a boost to the immune system, as well the seeds are good worming material for the birds. They also make my table at market look good. This includes spaghetti squash as I do love it and have good luck selling it in Southern Indiana.
Green Beans: easy to sale and use in bulk.
Sweet Potatoes: Same as potatoes but a spoonful of sugar makes the medicine go down. Oh, and sales.
Sunflowers: Edibility and beauty. Human and animal and cut flowers.
Zinnias and Marigolds: Beneficial insect habitat.
Poppies: Medicinal production if things got bad, another barter item, plus customers love seeing them on the farm.
Garlic and onions and herbs: I hate bland food with a passion plus there is some amount of medicinal benefit inherent in those crops.
low priority: Either things that I can readily find seed for cheaply or that I just simply don't devote as much time to because I don't find them nearly as necessary.
Peppers (I love them and do go out of my way to save and work with certain ones, I'm just totally not as disciplined about it as I could be)
Raddishes (lots of work for little return on a crop I don't sale many of and don't eat a lot of)
Summer Squash (far too redundant and not multi faceted in it's usefulness)
Other brassica types (not a huge fan of cabbage when collards and kale are readily available, even though it does sale well, it's to hard to isolate for seed production)
other squash types (they just don't do well here)
sweet corn (I know, this totally goes against the "grain", while I did make the crosses that led to Astronomy domine and I am increadibly proud of it, it's usefulness is not as diverse as my field corns, I need something that can produce abundantley, be used as animal feed, green corn, as well as storage corn and have cullinary qualities. I also need corn that can lay in a corn crib for 6-9 months without molding, I just can't justify my continued growing of sweet corn to meet a niche seed and produce market when that space can be devoted to something I'll use much more efficiently and will meet nearly any purpose I can think of including feeding myself, family, customers, birds, and now hogs.)