I will attempt transferring soil plant interactions capacities of a crazy amazonian landrace to Astronomi Domine by co culturing both in the same spots, following James White’s insights. No chance to get a harvest of the Amazonian due to probable if not certain photoperiod difference.
Couple pics of this Amazonian landrace:
The aerial roots were nearly up to my hips… and I’m pretty tall!
Those insights of James White are there, from 17’40” :
Two easiest ways quoted :
Co-culture (interesting plant with target plant in the same spot)
Making a juice of the interesting plant and germinate the target plant in it
So we’re not talking of genetics primarily there, even though other insights from Goldstein with his inbred lines of corn show us that with plants showing great “biological intelligence” (here in the sense of strong soil plant interactions through microbiology), variations show up greatly, the microbiology seeming to induce mutations or to activate some dormant/sleeping genes. I can’t remember how they call that.
I have to say that I don’t know for sure that this corn has these superior capacities I’m thinking of. It’s more of a supposition. It could be also due to how tall it is, creating loads of shade, or to the climate there… 
Also : its height was about 5meters. It’s tall but there are other examples of farmers growing tall corns like that in temperate Europe, as Christian Abadie there:
So it’s not the height that caught my attention. - even if it was impressive - : it’s really the multiple levels of aerial roots : up to 5 or 6 and crazily dense and branching, and very high on the stem. I never heard or seen such a thing…
Wow! What kind of spacing was it planted? Or just broadcast?
About 5 to 6 plants every 70cm/2.5feet on the row and 1meter/3.3feets between rows on about half an acre
@Bruno just confirmed he will conduct a field experiment this year on Corn with Iroquois Corn Medecine using 2 types of phragmites roots known for their endophyte-rich content, soaking the seeds into the juices of those before germination. I think I first heard of that Iroquois Corn Medicine in GTS free course on “how microbes help plant adaptation”, White then on repeated that in a podcast, with John Kempf or with Harriet Mella… I don’t remember exactly. It’s in one of those I linked in Interesting Video Dump thread.
So that plus if I do an additional experiment with soaking the seeds of Astronomi Domine with a juice made from the pre-sowned amazonian landrace, we’ll have tested in 2026 the three main lines of thoughts outlined by James White as the best and easiest ways to transfer endophytes without crossing, and that on a relatively large scale, i.e. hundreds of plants, thousands in Bruno’s case. Of course the reality of the “transfer”(?) will be seen in 2027 - the idea being not to “boost” a plant on a yearly basis but to activate something that could be endophyte colonization, or stronger rhizosheath, etc and that translate to a more robust growth with more resilience built in via those better soil-plant collaboratios. We’ll see.
All these 3 experiments will be made with control groups.
I doubt @Bruno will post a lot regarding that on this platform as he’s active mainly on the PEPs platform (in French), but I’ll report on his experiment as on mine there, probably in a separate thread called something like “tests of James White’s insights”
I am amazed and full of respect and admiration for the dedication you guys put in trying those new approches to robustness. I feel like , in my current life, mixing genetics on several species is already complex enough for the mental space I have available . But I am very very glad to see the energy some of you put on this promising directions…. thank you so much.
So there isn’t any variety developed from those that would be little easier? Might be still worth to try to cross with something. Maybe send some seeds to Mallorca or other place with warm mediterinian climate? Or greenhouse with the possibility to cover part of the day. There must be someone interestid in going the extra mile for a cross.
If I remember correctly @marcela_v did say peruvian corns managed to make it in time last year, while no french grower did. She seems to have -or to have had - a longer growing season. So yes there are options to do crossings within our community. Simply let me know.
It’s a dent corn by the way, with small seeds, they use it for chicken. Looks like that :
:I’ve confirmed heavy exsudation with mucilage on the tip of aerial roots yesterday on newly growing plants, i.e. volunteers. Walter Goldstein said in the presentation last Thursday that it was this mucilage that was feeding the microbiome and activating strong rhizophagy - think feedback loops .
I think transfer of “capacities” - if proven to be true -that in return induce some variations without crossing could be very very complementary to the more long-term work we’re doing. Another tool in our toolbox. We’ll see…
Close up on those tips of first level of aerial roots, before they touch the ground and with that mucilage having a very distinctive soft touch :
I think that was actually me, in Mediterranean climate 
.
I managed to have 1 giant mature plant of maiz morado, seeds from Ecuador, last season - at least 3 meters long, which is huge for my soil conditions and depth, with a lots of areal roots on nodes up to a 1/3 of the plant. Pollination happend early October, that’s when one (and only) cob appeared!! I left it on the plant as long as possible and harvested it in December. In the end I got cca 30 mature grains (seeds) from it. Today I’ve planted half of them, don’t want to put everyithing in at once, it’s corn and moschata planting days here
Thanks a million Mare for rectifying that!
And yes it makes more sense with your location averaged at the closest city : Zadar if I’m right. Using weathersparks.com
Happy plantings!
Yes, and we have milder winters than Zadar, temperature wise, beeing surrounded by the sea.
Few notes of interest about that maiz morado (just one plant because birds decimated all other planted corn seeds):
Few photos, unfortunatelly don’t have a nice picture of it in full growth phase. First three are from early August - part of the plant laying mostly on the ground & aerial roots, rest is when I pulled the stalk out at the end of December.
Please try to get something to crosspollinate with it so we can get the trait to all types of corn
Thanks @mare.silba , Maiz Morado is one of the most communly grown around Cusco, used for preparing Chicha Morado which is… Purple yes but also delicious. It’s everywhere in markets.
Probably there are many many different strains though.
Another little experiment I’m trying this year is the overwintering of seeds of cucurbits in the soil, with controls of dried seeds of the same exact fruits. Of course if there is zero difference in growth with seeds I’ve dried, I won’t try that again, just eliminating an improvement hypothesis…
Trying that because last year I saw super strong early volunteers. May be due to seed microbiome maturing in the soil… Can’t tell yet and am curious to see if there is any observable trend.
Here is one of the 3 replica of overwintering 10 seeds of 3 fruits of some of my best moschata plants of last year:
Also - and there I have no control group - last year I stopped fermented my cucurbit seeds, simply extracted the seeds, WITHOUT RINSING to try preserve microbiota, then dried them slowly at moderate temp in untreated coffee filters, as can be seen there :
That method has been useful to separate seeds from each fruit, with markings on coffee filters, which could be useful for many things later, like sowing seeds separately either to do selection or to keep maximum diversity, or sending samples of my populations with all fruits represented, like @WojciechG does.
What are those 2 types of phragmites roots and will common reed (Phragmites australis) be worth trying? Also, do you have any methods of extracting those juices? I was reading about this ICM some time ago, but as I remember it seemed to be a bit complicated.
I’m no expert on those matters, and neither Bruno, but all is based on recommandations made by J.White in recent podcasts. It’s hard to find anything on the Internet on this Iroquois Corn Medicine.
I just know that Phragmites australis and Arundo donax will be used.
@Bruno what method of extraction will you use?
If I remember correctly in his conversation with Kempf, White was talking about heating moderately water (under 40degC) and then soaking the roots.
But we would better have a direct conversations with James…
I have found this:
2. Iroquis-Foods.pdf (5,9 MB)
Here is some information. I briefly came back to it, and on page 18 starts part about corn medicine. There are other plants mentioned.
Salut Thomas !
For the soaking, it will be 50°C as in the book about iroquois corn medicine. For the rest, I have no more precise instructions, so I try something and write everything, add a presoaked with pure water control.
Arundo donax is the biggest poaceae in Europe (up to 5m I guess) and adapt to a wide range of soils (from sandy to clayish) so it seems interresting to try it
Makes me think that sorghum halepense could be too a good candidate… I had seen cues of strong microbial activity in his root system if I remember correctly.
