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Post by starbuckwhy on Jul 9, 2018 14:55:59 GMT -5
native American farmers, in general, used irrigation to grow their corn. they wear actually very advanced farmers compared to a lot of what we are used to imagining from early European accounts.
tiosente, the thing that corn was probably bred from, grew mostly along rivers and creeks.
a guy in my hometown (near concord ca in the diablo valley) actually grew a bunch of sweet corn along the side one of the creek one year, the rats wiped it out the next year i saw ihm try it... but if something as weak as sweetcorn can grow from a HEAVILY polluted creek, i'm sure something as tuff as a native american popcorn could grow that way.
there is an interesting account of a northamerican native city that collapsed because one of their irrigation/engineering projects went wrong, i will try to find the link to the research that talked about it. the city was not in california, but it is a good example of how sophisticated their irrigation systems actually go, even in North America, let alone the insane degree of infostructure building and straight up terraforming that they did in South America. it's interesting stuff.
i have managed to produce a couple small patches with a combination of several dry farming techniques.
i hear people wax fatalistic about corn needing lots of water and nitrogen, but i have found flint corn way easier to grow than tomatoes, and nobody ever wories about how much water and N they need...
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Post by starbuckwhy on Mar 2, 2017 6:24:59 GMT -5
haha, yah, i know the show, a laughed my ass off when they covered the topic,
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Post by starbuckwhy on Feb 15, 2017 6:18:33 GMT -5
project delayed until next year, due to temporary budget issues (minor home repairs/maintenance) that will not be cleared up until after the window for this year has closed. i may still order the parts some time in april, but then i still wouldn't be doing any tests until this time next year.
i am also considering irradiating budwood before grafting.
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Post by starbuckwhy on Feb 12, 2017 4:20:19 GMT -5
gonna try again this year. using the seeds and things that i already have. i was thinking of buying some of your hybrids through your web site actually, but got distracted trying to figure out how to use the public encryption code, then got side tracked with another project and never picked it back up. *shrug* i'm thinking i'll try them in containers on the porch this year as well, last year i tried them in the garden and they didn't hang in there as long as i would have liked before they got killed by something. this year it will be nice to have a backup or two in a pot, so i can at least use the pollen to try and get some hybrid seeds. i'm probably going to be pretty preoccupied with my fruit tree grafting projects and the potatoes from seed this year.
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Post by starbuckwhy on Dec 21, 2016 16:29:15 GMT -5
dude, sooo coool! that is fantastic, i am very jealous after drying a stripping the hybrid cobs did you notice any structural differences in the cobs? i had a few cobs that i hand pollinated very carefully but with drastically different breeds, i got the same sort of spotty pollination results on some of those, but not on the ones that i hand pollinated with similar species. this leads me to wonder if it was actually some kind of failed hybridizations. i notices the largest number of failed pollination in the ones that wear a cross of huge hominy corn with 10-15 inch cobs and 15 foot tall stocks crossed with the tiny strawberry popcorn with the 3 foot tall socks and the 1-2 inch cobs.
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Post by starbuckwhy on Sept 22, 2016 4:06:40 GMT -5
Isn't it going to be just another recipe/ version of white oil? From the recipes online that's just vegetable oil and a surfactant, and that also burns plants when the weather is hot (I don't go use it if it's above 25c or on tender plants). I don't think there is any particular compound that is going to be insecticidal. Try your standard recipe with vegetable oil and see whether the results are the same. Here's a link to an Australian site stfc.org.au/home-made-white-oil-recipeHope that helps. yah, pretty much.but the pokeweed worked very well on the corn.
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Post by starbuckwhy on Sept 19, 2016 16:59:51 GMT -5
i recently received some zia diploperennis x pollen from a wonderful benefactor. and have already crossed it with some of my hardy hominy hybrids corn, the tassels withered right after so i think it took well. will also be trying it with some other popcorn species and with some hybrids between glass gem and pinky popcorn. one of the ones i crossed it with ended up being a mutant in it's own right, with a long tassel and a cob with not husk at the tip. (picture bellow) so it will be extra interesting to see what kind of plant those kernels grow if they make it to term.
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Post by starbuckwhy on Sept 19, 2016 16:40:58 GMT -5
Most people who use it dilute it and that might be a good idea. My apples and a pine seedling both showed blackening leaf after being sprayed although all seem to have come back again, not sure how a more tender leafed plant would cope. I'd gone heavy duty with full strength and it might well have been overkill, just because I was a bit sceptical. Most dilute it with water and a couple of drops of dish soap so it will emulsify and if I use it again I'll be doing that. i had the same for of results, it seems to be protecting my apples from apple moths pretty well. but some of the ones i sprayed more heavily while they wear young have reacted poorly, definitely gonna try diluting with a mild soap next time.
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Post by starbuckwhy on Aug 22, 2016 4:15:32 GMT -5
so the pokeweed spray i made worked very well on the afids, and even seemed to deter the ants that wear feeding on them a little bit. also as an unexpected bonus, it seems to have repelled earwigs pretty well. most of my plants seem to be more or less immune to the particular species of of afid that it hitting my nasturtium to hard, i may just give up on eating the nasturtium this year and go ahead and use the pokeweed spray on them too, to control the afid population.
perhaps i will try the canola oil first.
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Post by starbuckwhy on Aug 22, 2016 4:05:31 GMT -5
[Zea mays X Z. diploperennis] Ames 13502, Ames 13503 Zea diploperennis, PI 462368 i am super jealous, i would love to work with the pollen from those hybrids. if it works out with your schedule is there any way i can get a tassel or two? we actually have such a long season out here that my brothers (a few miles away in a warmer region) are going to put in a second crop of corn, divided between their small greenhouse and their main garden. we got some pretty interesting hybrids this year, especial the crosses between the [hominy x blue meal corn] and the glass gem corn. but it would be great to put some diploperennis hybrid dna in there and see what it does. the large hominy corn seems to have a lot of dominant traits, so i wonder how it would react with the dominant traits in the diploperennis hybrids pollen.
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Post by starbuckwhy on Aug 12, 2016 22:17:12 GMT -5
starbuckwhy and darrenabbey - I came across a publication by the FAO/ICARDA/ICRISAT which stated they have a free gamma mutation breeding service available. "Any plant breeder can send seeds for gamma ray irradiation to this address. The scientists working there can advise on the dose of gamma rays or apply the dose requested by the breeder. They will also adjust seed moisture content if necessary." in Plant Breeding and Farmer Participation - Methodologies for generating variability. Part 4: Mutation techniques p163 www.fao.org/docrep/012/i1070e/i1070e00.htmFAO/IAEA Agriculture Laboratory, Plant Breeding Unit, A-2444 Seibersdorf, Austria (<Official.Mail@iaea. org>) Hope that helps guys. Cheers Steve HOLY CRAP, THAT IS AMAZING!!! THANK YOU SO MUCH!!!i am all over that bro! i am planning on planting a friends yard with potato seed soon, i will be a lot of fun to get some of the seeds irradiated in this way and compare the results with the other forms of mutation. i have also been thinking of collecting a bunch of "foxtail" seeds from around the neighbourhood and mutating them to see if i can get a less sharp less bured variety that would be less likley to hurt pets and then proliferate it and use it to crowd out and eventually supplant the more troublesome breeds that are already established in the city.
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Post by starbuckwhy on Jul 7, 2016 3:27:10 GMT -5
haha, the small pot with the tortured corn seedlings is tasling. and i found more aphids, this time in my other corn patch. there were lady bugs eating them so held off on the diatomaceous earth and just put out some borax with sugar in it to kill the ants instead. then of course i smashed as many as i could with my fingers. the borax and diatomaceous earth seems to be working ok on the other corn patch (cross my fingers). my potted tomatoes are doing well, and so are my ground cherries. the beans are wrapping themselves around the squash as fast as the squash plants can grow
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Post by starbuckwhy on Jul 7, 2016 3:17:37 GMT -5
Thanks for all your answers! interestingly all volunteers are dwarfs and start to make male flowers but no female ones (don`t know the english expressions for it right now ) i think the term for the male flower is tassel and the term for the female is silk. that is interesting that they are coming up only male. i have a few that are male and female in the same flower. you should try cutting off one of the male flowers and bagging (putting a paper bag over the flower to control what it pollinates with) it with one of the female flowers on another plant, to see how the hybrids turn out, might be neat.
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Post by starbuckwhy on Jul 3, 2016 14:02:22 GMT -5
nice. i'll have to try it. dose if attract ants? my bigest pest problems... well, my most persistent pest problems have been ants farming aphids on my plants.
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Post by starbuckwhy on Jul 3, 2016 13:57:33 GMT -5
the small pot with corn seedling in it is an experiment to see if i can get some useful epigenetic changes by torturing the corn with overcrowding and then using it's pollen (i figure it won't be able to fruit in those conditions) to pass the traits on.
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