2022-10-12T07:00:00Z
I harvested some of my sweet corn because we’re expecting rain next week, and here is a great example of an heirloom vs landrace/grex.
The purple is Hooker Sweet Corn, and the lovely ones are mostly the Astronomy Domine sweet corn. Grown side by side, representative sample.
Do you have good any examples of inbreeding depression in action?
Fantastic example! What reasons do you suspect for much better pollination in the landrace corn? A greater variability of pollen dispersal times? Thank you for sharing.
Shao S
2022-10-12T07:00:00Z
So, this spring I let my brassicas go to seed. I had mostly broccoli and brussel sprouts, with one purple kale plant as well. The seeds scattered around and I left them to fight it out for the best. Now they’ve organised themselves out for the most part with a bit of selective thinning by me selecting for vigor and unique traits. They all germinated at the same time, but I began to notice some were extremely stunted compared to others… As they’ve grown out more, it’s abundantly clear that those who crossed with a different variety have completely surpassed their inbred siblings (the best of the best out of many, might I add). Here’s a photo of the purple kale x brussel sprout (?) next to a purebred broccoli (Calabrese) plant. Same age plants. Same nutrients. Same sun. Same soil. Same water. Hybrid vigour. More photos below.
Left: Broccoli x brussel sprout that has a particularly unique looked compared to any of the others. Has huge, somewhat round, deep green leaves that look nothing like the blue grey leaves of either parent. Much bigger leaves than either parent. Nice thick sturdy stock.
Middle: purple kale x brussel sprout. Interesting expression. None of the purple leaves of the father kale. Lovely thin soft leaves. Pink stock of the mother brussel, thin stock of the father.
Right: 2 purebread calabrese broccoli
Another example of a few.
Left: local cauliflower heirloom (also planted the same time)
Right: broccoli x brussel sprout hybrid. Extremely vigorous, and noticably different in phenotype from the other brocoli x brussel sprout hybrid on the left of the previous photo. Leaves very similar to those of the calabrese parent and pink hints in the stock from the brussel sprout parent.
Well maybe I’m wrong, but I’d understood somewhere that lack of pollination is one symptom of inbreeding depression in corn. I suspect that had my temps and soil been better for corn, the difference wouldn’t have been so striking, Hybrid vigor more obvious in any kind of stressful situation. Another answer could be just that Astronomy Domine does better in cooler temperatures, but I prefer the first answer 
