I’m really interested to maximize growth of plants during the time when soil is moist in the spring. Plants that get their roots established before late May (zone 6a here) survive the hot dry summers better here. Has anyone ever tried planting corn seeds in late fall to overwinter in the ground? I know that sounds crazy…
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I’ve seen projects working on a “perennial” corn using perennial teosinte.
I’ve alao seen feed corn sprout from the previous year. Which means the seed was able to remain dormant and viable.
I think it would be VERY difficult/unlikely, but would not say impossible.
Evolution and adaptation are capable of almost anything with enough time and the correct selection pressures.
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I worked with perennial corn for some years. The rhizomes were not winter hardy for me. I would expect them to not be winter hardy in usda zone 6a.
I typically plant corn, 3 weeks before the average last frost date. Planting the seeds deeper makes the plant more resistant to frost.
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My wild corn self seeds does but it’s a popcorn and it doesn’t come up start growing earlier than what I plant corn the dusty in the ground all winter are on the ground the birds don’t get it
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Seems possible to me on the face of it. Or at least I can’t rule it out. I have no knowledge of the perennial corns (though I know of perennial teosinte), but I know there are corns that can tolerate frost, from both heard and direct experience.
Two seasons ago I planted grain corn in/near a patch of goldenrod in February. A lot of it came up and got clobbered repeatedly by killing frosts. Damage was significant but several plants survived and continued to grow. I wish I had begun babying them at this point but I let them continue to fend for themselves. They got crowded out by faster growing weeds.
Nevertheless this is a proof of concept to me that corn has the potential to handle frost, and so might be fall or at least early spring-planted in some temperate climates.
I thought I remembered somebody on the forum grows corn in a mountainous valley where it routinely weathers light freezes during the growing season. I may have misunderstood.
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If we are talking about theoretical possibilities, corn can be crossed with eastern gemmagrass, Tripsacum dactyloides, which is more cold-hardy than teosinte.
I don’t have any firsthand experience with this species. I have been intending to practice my identification for it since I live in its range.
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There appear to be seeds of gamma grass in the Fukuoka’s Grab Bag. I was wondering what that was about. I also planted gamma grass as part of a mix of native prairie species that I obtained last year from the University of Illinois Extension and the Prairie Land Conservancy.
I had no idea that it’s so closely related to corn. That’s very interesting, thank you for the information. The Wikipedia article specifies that it’s the tetraploid form of gamma grass that can cross with corn. I’m not sure how I would know if i have the tetraploid form.
Link to research paper discussing corn-gammagrass crossing in detail:
https://watermark.silverchair.com/genetics0493.pdf
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I read about corn being crossed withTripsacum but it took special treatment to cross at the end to take the cut the silks back to like a half inch or so and put a false husk on it and then sometimes it would cross sometimes it wouldn’t
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This is something I wish to do! Corn x Perennial Teosinte x Tripsacum = CRAZY POSSIBILITIES! What do Tripsacum x Zea mays hybrids do? Where does the ear form? I’ve haven’t seen a pictures of the hybrid offspring. Also can we Pop Tripsacum? Sorghum is also closely related to the tribe of Corn & Tripsacum, could it cross despite being a larger genetic jump? Poaceae is that crazy Intergeneric Crossing family after all (Like Asteraceae, Rosaceae, Catcaceae, Brassicacea, etc).
Also I can’t get the “Link to research paper discussing corn-gammagrass crossing in detail:” To work, says “token was not provided”. What was the study called? Maybe I can look it up.
Time for Mentor Pollination with recently Hybridized parents & Introgression back with those parents until a Homeostasis of Hybrid Swarm is Achieved. Also False Husk? Super curious about that.
The cross between corn an
Cross between corn and Tripsacum looks like a weird teosinte
Says “Your session has timed out. Please go back to the article page and click the PDF link again.”. I guess I gotta be quicker?
Hmm… Interesting but what do the seeds & fruit look like?
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It’s citation 14 in this Wikipedia article:
I hope that helps
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Thank you! I’ve Downloaded it. Good info, I still hope someone took photos of the hybrid offspring to see what it looks like. There is no way to graft corn onto other grasses right? It’s not like Bamboo will graft accept corn 
right?
But does the Perennial Corn pop like Teosinte & Popcorn too? It seems like all Zea Species can pop too. Thus heavy selection for popping may not be necessary right?
I assume a Thick heavy leaf mulch would do the same?
A few links with sample photos:
Maize & Tripsacum: Experiments in Interspecific Hybridization and the Transfer of Apomixis. A Historical Review
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“Hybrid seed set utilizing Ladyfinger popcorn as the maternal parent when pollinated by tetraploid T. dactyloides. Over 100 F1 seed can be easily obtained when an appropriate maize parent is utilized in the cross.”
Those seeds led to plants that looked like this:
There has also been a three-species hybrid:
Tripsazea, a Novel Trihybrid of Zea mays, Tripsacum dactyloides, and Zea perennis
Morphology of tripsazea and comparison of its several morphological characters with three parental species. (A) One-year-old tripsazea plant by stem node propagation. (B) Tripsazea ears from axillary bud differentiation, branching of lateral inflorescence. (C) A tripsazea seedling from the axillary bud. (D) Regenerated tripsazea plants after mowing. (E) Flowering of tripsazea plants induced by short-day exposure. (F) Mature leaves from the hybrid and its parents (area 1 cm2). The ear (G), seed (H), male spikelet (I) and silk (J) from the hybrid (tripsazea: MTP) and its parental species (M, T, and P designations refer to Z. mays, T. dactyloides, and Z. perennis, respectively). Scale bars, 1 cm.
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FOOKIN EPIC! Kind of speechless you found it! THANK YOU!
The main ID difference between Tripsacum & Zea are the Flower/Seeds. For Tripsacum species The Male & Female flowers often on the same spike/Terminal Inflorence, Male on top, female on bottom. Corn (Zea genus) has male/female infloreces seperate from each other but both still on same individual plant.
From the photo of the seed cob, I can see the top of the corn cob with the Unpollinated Male inflorescence just kind of left there to hang. I’m super curious if Tripsacum pops like popcorn & if the Hybrid Offspring would also pop super similarly!
What you found here is SUPER EPIC, because it’s like redomesticating another Random Grass into an EPIC Edible Crop like corn! I’m super curious as to what new Cultivar groups will be found in the traits of the offspring (Perhaps another totally different style of Poping? we’ve already got Popcorn & Cornnut style of popping in Corn, & Sorghum (Another close Relative) also pops like Popcorn.).
What interests me is the Apomoxis trait from Tripsacum into Corn. It probably would make Heirlooming Corn a lot easier & would allow Garders to plant a single corn plant & still get seeds right? Since Apomoxis is asexual reproduction.
The 3 species Hybrid is EPIC!!! Wait H is male spikelt? But not a viable seed? How edible were the offspring? Was it also poppable in a popcorn machine? I’m hoping we can create Tripzea 3 way Hybrid Corn/GammaGrass Hybrids & then share them with each other. I know Crazy EPIC Shit hapends this way, especially with such wide crosses.