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Post by Tom Wagner on Nov 15, 2013 18:23:36 GMT -8
Kansas Blue and White Composite #5  PI 222646 Four ears from 2 plants grown near Duvall, WA selfed and open pollinated to all kinds of corn Numbered 1 to 4 left to right one and three same plant ...2 and 4 same plant Pedigree A composite of 9 varieties, mostly of white grain but some blue aleurone, hardy and high yielding. Accession was developed. PRE 20-Dec-1954. Kansas, United States. Donors: Tatum, L., Kansas State College.Manhattan, Kansas. Other pre-1954 white corn varieties in Kansas also donated by Tatum were the 12 listed below. The 9 variety composite was likely composed of one or more of these... Richards White Freed White Cassel White Montgomery County White Montgomery County Blue and White Crawford County White St. Charles White Challender Blue and White Shawnee White (Muskrush) Neosho County White Pride of Saline Butler County White I grew many of these when I lived back in Kansas 25 years ago. I remember being very fond of Freed White and Cassel White corn varieties. When I was a kid I hired myself out to pick corn up from the fields after the corn picker went through earlier and left ears and throw them up into a wagon with a bang board. Yes, I was picking corn before 1954 and there were a number of old farmers who still used teams instead of tractors and grew open pollinated corn. An old farmer by the name of Allie Dorssom was especially fun to work for. This is my first year to grow this old Kansas composite. I suspect most of the seed is widely crossed to the fifty other varieties in the plot. It includes varieties from around the world, but all non hybrid, non GMO accessions. As the Kansas White and Blue Composite was 9 ft. tall and rather late, I would imagine that many of the pollinizers were even later corns, including many from the tropics. Most of the 50 plus varieties tasseled before they had silk emerging on their respective stalks. Here is some of the grain shelled out...many are yellow indicating the hybrid status.  Some may wonder why I would go back to a corn variety not grown for 60 years comprised as this composite is of corn that is likely from one hundred plus years ago. Simple...to create yet another round of composites that broaden the genetic basis. The yellow kernels are obviously F-1 and sowing them out to create F-2 seed or better yet F-1 times yet a different F-1 if different pollen donors were evident in this current season. Saving the white kernels in the F-2 seed for replanting would return the Kansas whites as homozygous forms. One could then cross those F-2 lines back to the original accession 222646 seed left over to gain another population to work with. Ear number 4 (pictured as grain) has 183 seed and is just a nubbin compared to its sister ear. A single ear's worth of seed would create lots of selection material and all the seed would be sib mated if planted in a block. Selecting for white kernels or yellow kernels...or both...and planting out is a fantasy of sorts of mine during this time of year. I have to dry to corn indoors since it is rainy everyday outdoors, and when I look up pedigree info and such... I get hooked. I sometimes write about topics like this to illustrate that my interests go beyond taters and maters. I don't expect this treatise to be interesting to many folks however...I wonder if I could list seed available for sale of these kinds of corn and get participants to send seed back from an isolated growout? Tom Wagner |
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Post by DarJones on Nov 16, 2013 0:51:47 GMT -8
I deliberately crossed Country Gentleman X Silver King this year in hopes of selecting a se+ shoepeg type corn.
It seems that winter dreams sometimes result in summer obligations for weeding and watering and fertilizing.
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Post by cortona on Nov 16, 2013 10:30:27 GMT -8
i'm working on a composite population too, i've started with several flour corn all from arid location and or cold short season, some are from grin, some come from people around the word, some from fellow of another forum, at least 25 accession, i've mixed it and planted in a single patch, the first year i've done some emercency irrigation but from the second year i've not irrigated at all, at today i'm at the 4 generation but this year i've done a larger growout at a my friend's place,having a particular wet summer the selection for resistence to drought are impossible so i've selected for productivity,now i'm looking for people that can help me growing sample of my seeds and select it and returning me some seeds.
thanks in advance
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Post by Tom Wagner on Nov 16, 2013 12:15:11 GMT -8
Thanks, Darrel and Emanuele,
I suspected several readers were also doing some breeding/selection work with corn. I have some sweet corn breeding projects, flour corn projects, quite a bit of High Protein..QPM corn, and widely diverse conglomerates of other types.
I am thinking that there must be a market for delivering small to modest amounts of either OP or hybrid corn in the near future, especially with the non GMO label. My QPM corn is growing from a modest 15 lines or so with a hnadfull of seed to where I could plant a half acre next year. I did a combination of direct seeded to transplants to implement the project. The direct seed lines here in the Seattle area dictate very early lines and those may dominate the female lines in the breeding work. I will have to balance the heterotic groups to foster the hybrid vigor and yields. My high protein lines are heavy in the SSS (Stiff Stalk Synthetic) lines but thankfully my best direct seed line is a NSSS (Non Stiff Stalk Synthetic).
Once I plan a multi bushel increase of hybrid seed production...I will likely have to purchase a $46 unit or build a light table to screen each and every kernel for the presence of the opaque 2 gene. That is to make sure that only homozygous lines are used both as male and female parents. My #7 line has about 18 good ears that are largely sib mated and I could use that as a fairly uniform mother stock and the male parents could be those that are nearly 100% crossed among themselves as SSS lines. The resulting hybrid corn would be somewhat uniform but still diverse. The locations planted would favor certain genotypes over others and the F-2 population in each of those areas could be bulked and the process repeated.
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Post by Tom Wagner on Nov 16, 2013 14:18:49 GMT -8
I requested corn seed from Emanuele on a private message on Facebook. I was impressed with his testing for drought resistance. I looked up the drought resistance of five lines that may be part of the Kansas White and Blue Composite #5 and found the following that had resistance in the old days of Kansas...likely mostly before I was born. Maybe I could develop a new population combining my lines with Emanuele's.
Here in the Seattle area we get some dry days usually starting sometime in June, July and August. I should test some out without any watering during those times with a small plot. I would be best to start the plot with transplants and get them established before the dry period...the late summer rains will end the dry period.
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Post by DarJones on Nov 16, 2013 18:20:53 GMT -8
One of the things I found out about drought tolerant corn is that is is not really drought tolerant. Bear with me and I will explain. Corn is a shallow rooted crop. It tends to put roots out within 3 to 4 feet of the stem. Very few of those roots go downward into the soil to reach deep layers with more water retention. The corn that is noted as drought tolerant simply makes a slightly larger root system. I'm not disparaging the effect of a bigger root system and the resulting ability to handle moisture stress. This is just not a very good way of adapting compared to mechanisms present in other poaceae species.
Sorghum is a near relative of maize. It developed in conditions that include severe drought. As a result, it has genetic adaptations to deal with severe moisture stress. One of those adaptations is to produce more roots oriented deep into the soil. Another is to close stomata when moisture is unavailable therefore preventing loss through the leaves. A third is to slow down all growth processes until moisture is avaiable. If these same adaptations were present in maize, the level of drought tolerance would double. This is what the Monsanto's of the world are working on, gene engineering the drought adaptations of sorghum into maize.
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Post by Tom Wagner on Nov 17, 2013 0:13:41 GMT -8
Darrel, you've actually made my point in your seemingly contrary opines on what constitutes drought tolerance.
The three issues in isolated points:
I think it apropos that I like to work with all kinds of corn...all non GMO....and going back to corn that survived adverse weather...drought if you will...in Kansas during the thirties, forties, fifties..... and involving the Kansas White and Blue Composite #5...from nine different OP corns no less...maybe a deep rooted corn is part of the answer going back to those good old days. The plant populations were lower in those days and sturdy stalks and big ears were the norm.
Wind in Kansas is legendary....who knows how much the stomata closed down on those old varieties preventing moisture loss?
Early or late...and maybe more so with the late maturing lines...the corn would hold on until a rain would allow the corn to go ahead and produce the first ear or even second ear.
I am a proud member of the anti-GMO community. I have to be. I agree with contracts that specify that a breeder will have seed entirely free of any form of genetically engineered or genetically modified seed!
Along with that I am a organically oriented plant breeder.
I understand and appreciate the attempt to make farmers' lives a bit more tenable with GMO. If milo genes can be put into corn...let them...but don't expect me to support that. DroughtGard™ maize was the first commercially available transgenic (GM) drought tolerant crop released in 2013. Does anyone think I could support that technology in my work? I am in some ways a more primitive plant breeder than any farmer like my dad of the 1930's. My dad's great grandfather came to Kansas when it was still a territory. I hope to follow traditions more reminiscent of that fore-bearer....Wilhelm Fredrick "William" Kuhnert (1828 - 1874) who farmed along the Rock Creek area of Doniphan County, Kansas. That bottom ground still produces great corn! And always not irrigated.
Imagine the rough hands of many a Kansan farmer shucking corn from each of those original nine lines of white corn...and what smiles that had to be on their faces when they picked good solid ears regardless of the weather. Corn growers from all over the state of Kansas left pieces of legacy in this one composite. I am living a lost history and probably should be considered a 'museum dodo" or worse. It would be hard to find a face from many of those farmers of the old days of OP white corn in Kansas. I am creating yet another composite and I have a face. My face is a composite of my Kansan fore-bearers. Putting my face on a packet of corn seed makes as much sense as putting a picture of Orville Redenbacher on a bag of popcorn...maybe more.
Maybe I should find a picture of my g.g. grandfather Kuhnert and put his image on a pack of corn? A pre-composite?
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Post by Tom Wagner on Nov 17, 2013 0:32:15 GMT -8
 Wilhelm Fredrick "William" Kuhnert (1828 - 1874) My Great Great Grandfather ..my dad's mom's mom's dad Edited 2-4-14 adding a picture of another branch of my ancestry to show similar traits of their appearance.  My G grandfather August Becker...my mother's mother's dad. |
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Post by cortona on Nov 17, 2013 2:29:34 GMT -8
i dont knw if my corn is better rooted tan others or if it's more drought tollerant tan others, but i've simply plant my composite group of seeds, that i've requested from varius source, and simply i've not irrigated it(wel 2 times in the firts year but wit no rain from the sky)the plants that survived and produced seeds contribute for the second generation,here we grow corn just as a crop that need irrigation and all is yellow dent corn so i dont allow yellow kernels to be planted in my patch and i discard any yellow ones that means crosses here for me,so if my corn produce ears of any kind it have to be more drought resistant tan the usual corn here and that matters for me, the deep reasons that produce this result are far from my total undersanding but....
ps here in italy gmo corn is not allowed for wath i know so no gmo for wath i know in my progect
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Post by cortona on Nov 17, 2013 2:46:13 GMT -8
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Post by Tom Wagner on Nov 17, 2013 20:13:45 GMT -8
Emanuele,
I take it you are selecting for colored "Squaw" corn?
I am trending away from the colors since I am looking for good field corn that matches what folks would expect to see...yellow and/or whites....for food grade or poultry feed. I could not do the colors this year in the four patches since I was afraid of getting colors other than yellow or white. I may go back to the Painted Mountain lines if I find time next season. That is somewhat unlikely since I will devote more time to tomatoes next year.
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Post by cortona on Nov 18, 2013 9:07:07 GMT -8
wel my idea is to end up wth a mostly withe corn whit some colored kernels here and there, because for quality flour i think withe kernels are the best, some red or chinmark ones are welcomed, not blue or yellow.
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Post by Tom Wagner on Nov 18, 2013 18:26:01 GMT -8
Those of us who have an interest in this topic are fully loaded with anachronisms.
a·nach·ro·nism (
n.
1. The representation of someone as existing or something as happening in other than chronological, proper, or historical order.
2. One that is out of its proper or chronological order, especially a person or practice that belongs to an earlier time:
It would be, frankly, boring if we were normal. T'was like we have to go back in time in real time to be ready before our time.
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Post by keithp2012 on Apr 4, 2014 20:21:55 GMT -8
I'm going to grow Glass Gem corn for fun, the ears are the most colorful around, and you can eat them as popcorn!
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Post by DarJones on Apr 13, 2014 19:41:39 GMT -8
Keithp, good luck with the glass gem. I suspect you will give up on popping it.
Tom, I planted a row and a half of Cherokee Squaw, 1/4 of a row of an opaque II inbred, and 1/4 of a row of a high methionine corn. The opaque II and Methionine lines will be de-tasseled so the Cherokee Squaw pollinates them. I left room for a third row of Cherokee Squaw which will be planted a week from now to ensure good overlap on pollen availability. The long term objective is to develop a corn line that has high tryptophan, high lysine, and high methionine combined with high production of a relatively soft corn for animal feed.
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