Based on my observations pollen seems to float in the air even it’s calm. Find it very hard manually pollinate by just bending above another silk because even with short distance it would go more sideways than vertically. Yet to see how this years cobs form, but I have seen Charles Dowding have even wider spacing than Julia and get perfect cobs. Might be more about number of plants you have rather than what kinda spacing you use. Previously I had tighter spacing, but failed to get cobs probably due to compination of them being too tight and dry weather. Now what I have are making mostly 2 cobs per plant, some even try to make 3 and in total I might get more yield than last year with more than double the plants. Plus I could interplant squash and have good harvest from them as well.
Last year I had similar spacing and had excellent pollination with the Astronomy Domine, but poor pollination with Aunt Mary’s Sweet corn, and they were in the same patch. This led me to realize there’s a lot more to corn pollination than pollen availability! But also yes it’s pretty windy in my patch.
And in Mexico the traditional farmers consistently recommend 80 cm/32", so what Jesse is saying makes sense.
Yesterday, I drove from St. Louis to Duluth, MN and noticed again and again how densely the monoculture corn was grown, and also how thin the stalks were. It was interesting to compare to my own corn.
I planted one package of going to seed grain corn. To that I added about the same amount of a mix composed of bloody butcher and Papa’s red white and blue, three grain varieties with short maturity time. I planted a couple of mounds every day or two during the second half of June.
Bloody butcher is known to grow well in this area. The red white and blue is a complete unknown. All of those named varieties came from seed that was left for a couple of years in our office, so germination rate might be a little lower.
There has been no watering or inputs. I had thought I was not going to start this corn project in 2023, but I realized that if I was going to put out squash then why not go ahead and put out beans and corn in those beds.
A lot of the plants that you see that are not corn or squash are chia. The rabbits and deer have demolished the beans although thankfully they have gone easy on the other vegetables thus far.
I’ve been enjoying sweet corn every day for the past week. The plants were stunted by a month of cold foggy weather in June, so the plants are only 3 ft tall or less, but plenty have almost normal sized cobs that are now mostly in the eating phase. They are so sweet! I had a dark red one yesterday that tasted like candy.
Last year I pruned off tillers. This year I didn’t, and some plants were like little bushes that only 1’ tall with no central spike. I actually detassled those and I’m eating all the little cobs as sweet corn. I didn’t see this last year so maybe it’s a response to cold. Are other people getting that trait?
Wow! Your population moved heavily towards purple stalks/leaves.
I tend to see short corn bushes when the main growing point gets damaged.
I had heavy tillering and some that stayed smaller, but nowhere near as much purple as you have in your stalks. Beautiful!
I told a local farmer friend (from a warmer area) that I was growing sweet corn. He said 'but… but… you can’t be! People don’t grow that here!" I’m used to it growing here now but some people get very excited. This year will be a low yield/great selection year for fog/wind tolerance which is pretty cool.
Corn went well this year. Thé red one is some folklore variety from the south. The three on the left came from one plant. I had a white variety which seems quick to take foreign pollen on board.
This one’s indicisive!
So crew. Tell me how to proceed? Should i look for interesting mixed coloured ones to seed next year or does their color have nothing to do with their genetics?
While my planting included bloody butcher and the Pappas Red, white, and blue mix from Baker Creek 2020, those varieties aren’t very well represented in the final harvest. Almost all of what I have here came from the going to seed grain mix. I really enjoy the colors and even though I don’t consider corn to be one of my high priorities I find myself looking forward to planting this out next year!
It looks like you had some good diversity come out of the mix. I love that purple and blue cob. Looking forward to seeing how it does next year for you!
Nice mix you have there. I like the twisted and irregular kernel shaped yellow one on the right. If this is your first year with the mix I would plant again with a general mix of them all and then make selections off of next year. Characteristics you want to keep can be anything, but it is always a good idea to look at plant health in the field before selecting. You can also separate colors if you want into color-based grexes if you want a red corn, yellow corn, white/blue/mix corn, etc. Kernel color is a genetic phenotype that has nothing to do with the health of the plant, as far as I am aware, but does affect flavor. You’ll get the phenotype you select for.
Thanks for helping. First year grex indeed. Good point you’re making Lowell. Plant health should be number one. I’ve been paying attention to industrial farmed corn. Their corn got huge quickly on that nitrate diet.
The twisted fat yellow one is my favorite too. Good plant health. Most of my sweetcornpatch next year will contain that one and some of the three red ones. Despite not being sweet, the plant was healthy and produced three big kernels. I’d like that trait in. The rest is going to my farmer friend for his cattle. He can grow that out as a part of his field and i’ll select the cornels of the healthiest looking plants before he harvests.
I’ll try to rephrase my question about using the ‘off’ colored corn seeds. Are those just eye candy or sure crosses? Or could anyone of the cornseeds be a cross despite being of the dominant kernel color. Or is it more sure to be a cross when it’s an ‘off’ colored corn seed?
I’ve noticed the white variety was producing many more ‘off’ type corn seeds. So if it is so that ‘off’ types are more likely to be crosses i would conclude it’s more promiscuous and therefor more valuable for me as a land race fanatic.
It is hard to be certain unless you know the parentage. If you have an all white inbred corn which contains a kernel other than white on it, then you certainly have a cross. The starburst pattern on that one cob looks like it is influenced by something different from the blue/purple kernels. It is hard to know which part is the cross though unless you know the parentage.
There are a few factors that influence promiscuity. Some of them are the number of tassels, how high they are, if the plant silks and tassels at the same time, etc. I think promiscuity is seen more in the overall reproduction characteristics of the plant than in the kernel phenotype.
4 different physical locations exist for determining kernel color. Some of the responsible genes dominate, some hide away, some vary depending on what other genes the plant carries, some show up in the first generation, some not till the second.
Some hybrids don’t show different kernel colors than selfed-kernels on the same cob.
That yellow kernel on the pure white cob indicates a hybrid, as do the purple kernels on the orange and yellow cobs. Ambiguity reigns in the rest. That orange cob could have pollinated the rest, and it won’t show up until next year.
Large kernels on a sparsely pollinated cob tend to revert to smaller kernels next year when they get crowded.
There are few colours I have noticed not to have off colours dispite promiscuity. Dark purple and white with bluish purple top of the kernel (kinda like eye) atleast. Off types also seem to be different depending on what’s “normal colour”. Atomic orange for example I don’t think. had any very light off colours, but there were variations to it’s normal colour that normally isn’t there. I would think there is some kinda order which colours dominate, like deck of cards, and some are on the top. I separated this year those that were off colour in my graincorn to be planted separately, but I’ll use all of them.
Hey everyone!
This is a reminder that the seed program is accepting donations now. It would be great if you could return even a small portion of the seed you saved from your corn this year. It will enable another person to participate in the program next year and contribute to a more diverse mix.
Here is the link to send in seed: Crops for 2024 – Going To Seed
The end date for returning seed will likely get moved up from November 1st to the middle of November since some people are still drying down their seeds.
Additionally, by donating seeds you will receive priority access to the catalog once it is published.
I’ve got a question about crossing grain corn and sweet corn.
I received the 2024 sweet corn mix instead of the grain mix. I have some saved corn from last year, but I was looking forward to bringing in some diversity from the mix. Would it really pose a problem to introduce some sweet corn to my grain corn patch?
If the “sweet” genetics are recessive, this might mean over the next couple of years I might occasionally get a random sweet plant, would that really be a problem since grain corn is my intended destination?
I don’t have much experience with corn, and last year was the first I’ve saved seed from the species.
I have mixed last year all my corn types. I think they will be beneffiting with the genetic variety. Corn kernels are corn kernels.
It depends on how you are going to use the corn in the future. I’m not very experienced on this, but if you’re going to be making grits or cornbread, it probably doesn’t pose an issue. Since it is recessive, it will likely only show up in a small percentage of the population throughout the future and not pose much of an issue.