Painted Mountain in the South of Europe 2026

[verdeperto]

I am trying out the Painted Mountain for the first time. I sowed the plants in pots on 03 April, and transplanted linearly to one of the beds as way to better assess them individually. They will be exclusively hand pollinated.

They were sown in groupings of two similar kernels both in colour and shape for a total of 33 different accessions or “lines”, if you will.

Far from a representative sample size or a thorough scientific setting but enough for me to have some fun observing and to draw some preliminary conclusions. There was some perceivable contamination with other types of corn in several of the packets containing the original seed stock. Also I tried to focus on flour types for this growout excluding any kernel that showed translucency and preferring matte exterior.

There were also a few mottled or striped kernels that were sown in their own sequence as well as a few repetitions of Hopi Pink.

From the 33 different “lines” a total of 9 plants have already shown silks and some of their tassels are shedding pollen. Both plants from line 11, 12 and 15 are showing early maturity (66% of total early plants) when compared with other lines. Lines 2, 7 and 17 have one plant each producing silks. They were sown on April 3rd and on May 25th, line 11 started producing the first silks.

I suspect these early plants are mostly the result of JesseI’s Atomic Orange X Painted Mountain as also I included them in the growout. They were so early that they caught up with the sweet corn trial…

…and these plants were sown more than six weeks before the Painted Mountain.

I knew flour corn should always be sown first both because it’s earlier and also because of its higher cold tolerance… but did not expect “Atomic Mountain’s” super earliness. This created a cross pollination problem for me, but I kind of like this kind of problems…

So… is this what “Serendipity” means?

[JesseI (Jesse Ilonen)]

Yes, atomic orange is really fast and there can be about 1 month difference in my climate between atomic orange and painted mountain. Probably a little less in warmer climate. Transplants tend to be slower in early growth so it’s probably 50/50 genetics and different methods of growing.

Glad it’s showing it’s potential in terms of earliness, even if it messes things a little bit. As I failed last year, this year should be my first real trial with them. Just sowed them a week ago.

[verdeperto]

Thank you, Jessel. Most of your seeds from the Seed Train showed great germination even when temps were “lower than recommended”… like someone has been actively selecting for that…

I will keep these super early plants separated and will gladly send you seed back. “Line” 11 is particularly interesting as it was the earliest and started producing pollen and silk virtually simultaneously on both plants.

Corn other news:

Both of these bad boys woke up today… one of them silk + shedding pollen, the other just pollen (no silk yet)… I don’t know which of you included them in the Europe Serendipity Seed Train but they sure are pretty.

I just had to pollinate every silk in the flour grow out…

I know its a recessive trait but couldn’t help myself… the idea of someone growing these seeds, serendipitously stumbling in a striped kernel… just seemed right.

Have to go now

[avery.bowron]

Painted mountain is such a diverse genetic base, there’s a ton of potential for unexpected and beautiful combinations to show up. It’s what got me started down this path of promiscuous pollination and landracing.

Here’s a few of my favorite kernels from over the years. I’m adding in some new varieties this year to maintain genetic diversity since I have limited growing space, but still growing half my corn from these I’ve been saving for 4 years now.

[malterod]

@verdeperto

Also I tried to focus on flour types for this growout excluding any kernel that showed translucency and preferring matte exterior.

I am curious if the matte trait goes along flour corn. I didnt know about this. Can you explain?

[verdeperto]

From what I understand, because they are mostly constituted of floury endosperm and almost no vitreous endosperm, light tends to scatter instead of reflecting, like with flint, pop and. to some extent, dent.

This produces a less glassy exterior and more of a dull appearance that can be described as matte or chalky.

Also, when laid over a strong back light, flour kernels, are completely opaque…

… unlike all the other types.

[malterod]

Wonderful explanation, I will note that down and use it to separate my grain corn into flour corn types. I have been wondering if there were any visual signs to separate the different grain corns - other than dent, which have the signature dent. Any way to tell flint corn apart from the others? Thank you @verdeperto

[verdeperto]

We tend to put the stuff that we see in world into arbitrary boxes that we can comprehend and refer to… like everything was just a collection of data points. But the world is obviously multidimensional and those boxes are abstractions based on a subjective set of observable traits.

So, when referring to evolving intercrossing populations that have incremental variations of said traits (like many of us here are doing)… it seems futile and pointless, trying to close or crystalize *Life" in such categories. This is particularly easy to verify in a single cob if different types are allowed to intermix.

This being said and from what I understand (might not be 100% accurate… those darn boxes keep moving), some observable kernel traits tend point to germplasm introgression of particular types of corn:

-sweet kernels shrink due to sugars not fully converting to starches; like with sweet peas, humans selected them for this abnormality in the conversion because of palatability; similarly to sweet peas, when they loose water through desiccation, they loose their structural integrity conducing to shrinkage; wrinkled appearance suggests introgression of this type

-flour kernels are mostly composed of floury endosperm, being the softest of all types of kernel; easier to squash and make into flour off all types; they are somewhat rounder shaped than flint

-dented kernels are a consequence of floury endosperm distribution on the top and center of the kernel, surrounded by tough vitreous endosperm; when drying occurs, floury endosperm looses volume contracting inwards and producing the indentation; they can be considered an intermediate type between flour and flint in terms of endosperm content and general hardness of the kernel

-flint and pop show similar “glassy” appearance both in shininess and translucence, because of similar kernel endosperm distribution of mostly the vitreous kind, but:

a) flint kernels are bigger than pop, selected for resistance to pests and durability in storage (and probably longer germination viability); they have very hard kernels and some of them can partially “pop” but supposedly not as palatable as pop kernels

b) pop kernels (being the most recent kindwas probably (just occurred to me, no proof whatsoever) a selection from the flint type, for) small kernels (better heat distribution) with extremely hard vitreous endosperm and strong pericarp (both act as pressure retainers) as well as ideal moisture content

Hope that helps, feel free to correct me

Dad joke that just occurred:

What did the flint tassel say to the sweet silk?

Oh kernel, my kernel…

[avery.bowron]

If you haven’t heard of Robin Wall Kimmerer’s writing before, I think you would enjoy her essays. This one in particular I listen to every spring while sowing corn and every fall/winter while selecting kernels to plant the following year.

Corn Tastes Better on the Honor System – Robin Wall Kimmerer

Archaeological evidence shows that popcorn is actually the oldest domesticated form of modern corn, most closely related to teosinte and appearing at the oldest archaeological sites. If you grow teosinte with a population of flour corn, I would expect introgression of flint/pop kernel genetics that would require intentional selection to remove again.

[verdeperto]

Thanks for the correction Avery… I’m pretty sure I had read somewhere that it was the most recent type of corn. I will edit that info so not to erroneously inform future readers.

In truth, it perfectly illustrates what I meant about the “moving boxes” and the way we shouldn’t be “fundamentalist” about them.

Also want to thank you for the essay link. I had previously stumbled on it while googling something but never noticed it was narrated. It’s a beautiful piece of writing and design and I will definitely listen to it soon.

[avery.bowron]

Quite likely that modern popcorns have also been bred/re-selected from modern flint corns. Just thought it was interesting the popped form was the original way of making corn edible.

As you said, these categories are based on constellations of traits and the boundaries can be (beautifully) messy.