Corn breeding

[Tom Wagner]

Corn breeding-- picking up after twenty years absence.
I planted a plot of about 16 rows yesterday with Astronomy Domine as the pollinator in every other row. The rains are falling as I speak so the corn should emerge well and has been organically fed. The Astronomy Domine is from Alan Bishop and has now I believe more than 100 lines in the breeding cycles. It is a multi-colored sweet corn. It also has different maturities to cross toother corn varieties planted one variety per row. All told, I don't think I planted much more than a pound of seed

Yes, I know, corn planted on June 30, 2010? Obviously an attempt at some sweet corn to eat and with detassling of every thing but the Domine corn I should get some seed to approach maturity for seed purpose before frost. I will have to dry it down for a few weeks and get the corn out of the field early before the floods hit in November.

It was 47 degrees at 4:45 AM when I was in the field planting yesterday. Cold germination abilities are a must. Fast growth and early silking is an absolute. Quick milk stage before it gets too cold is a gotta do. I suppose the corn that is 70 days or less might make. I reckon short plant height is in store.

Here are links to some of the corn planted....

Earlivee (VH691) - Breeder: Hort. Res. Inst. of Ontario, Canada. Vendor: Stokes Seeds. Parentage: V663 x V642. Characteristics: hybrid, very early, 10-14 rows, well filled, good quality, attractive ears, colored silks, and tassels, almost no suckers. Similar: Spancross. Adaptation: northern areas. 1972.

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Bodacious - Breeder and vendor: Crookham Company. Characteristics: excellent eating quality, with a diverse adaptation. 1989.

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Earliglow EH (D5 EH) - Breeder and vendor: Charter Research. Characteristics: F1 hybrid, 78 day maturity, high sugar content, very tender pericarp: remains in edible and processing stage for extended period; fresh market, canner, freezing whole ear or whole kernel. Adaptation: wide. 1978

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Trinity - Breeder and vendor: Crookham Company. Characteristics: early mid - season, se, bicolor.

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PI 219894 - Zea mays subsp. mays - Sunshine - North Dakota, United States -- rank: 962 ... backed up at second site. Accession names and identifiers Sunshine

Victory Seed's blurb

'Sunshine' was developed at the North Dakota Agricultural Experimental Station (AES) by A. F. Yeager to thrive in areas with shorter growing seasons. �Sunshine� is the stabilized cross of �Golden Bantam� [1902, W. Atlee Burpee] and �Gill�s Early Market� [Gill Bros. Seed Co., Portland, Oregon]. Originally released in 1927, it remained very popular, under several name variations, until seed companies began favoring the sale of unstable, F1 hybrids and last sold commercially in 1992.
The stalks grow to about 5� feet in height with ears setting about one foot from the ground. It retains the good, old-time corn flavor of its �Golden Bantam� parent but reaches roasting ear stage three to ten days earlier. The ears are six to eight inches long averaging twelve rows of golden yellow kernels. It did great in our Oregon and Tennessee 2003 trial, as well as in our seed production grow outs in 2004 and 2005. We look forward to hearing how it does in your garden.

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Ruby Queen Corn CN36-50

www.reimerseeds.com/images/f1hybrid.gif
75 days. Zea mays. (F1) Plant produces good yields of 8" long ears of red corn. Yes, it's really red! This is an extra sweet, tender variety that is very flavorful! The ears have 16 to 18 rows of kernels. Best when picked when it is blush red for maximum sweetness. Or you can let it ripen to full red so it can develop its rich, old fashioned flavor. There is no need to isolate from other corns, but we suggest that you grow another SE variety to help with pollination. An added bonus the red tassels and stalks make fantastic autumn decorations. An SE variety. Plant Height: 7 ft tall. pk/50

(SE) Sugary Enhancer HybridsThe SE varieties have the highest sugar content. It also has superior tenderness. Usually last over a week in the fridge. No isolation needed.

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i143.photobucket.com/albums/r131/telsingandrews/garden2010/bishops/bishopscorn.jpg

Astronomy Domine sweet corn patch to select seed and look at the beautiful husked ears of every hue of sweet corn seed you can imagine.
Astronomy Domine Sweet Corn is the working name of a “mass cross” breeding and selection for sweet corn which meets a niche demand in Southern Indiana markets for a multi-colored, open pollinated, enhanced nutrition, drought tolerant and genetically diverse sweet corn of special interest to home gardeners, seed savers, and market gardeners looking to fill a niche. The project has evolved over the past year by way of the Hip-Gnosis Seed Development Project to include and inspire home gardeners and plant breeders across the United States and Canada to use the first generational germless from the original mass cross to develop and increase the diversity of regional strains of Astronomy Domine which may later be renamed by participating growers to their own desire.

Multiple lines of colored open pollinated and hybrid sweet corns were planted together in a small eight row block on our small produce farm in Pekin Indiana in the 2007 season. The corns ranged days of maturity from 55-90 days, planting was staggered so as to further facilitate crossing between late maturing, mid maturing, and early maturing varieties leading to a harvest date that was literally all over the map in the late summer and early fall of 2007. No irrigation was performed and the plot was fertilized only with composted chicken manure. Very little earworm damage was noticed and the corn seemed mostly unfazed by the record setting drought of 2007, sans the genetics provided by Ruby Queen hybrid sweet corn (Burpee’s Seeds). CCorn planted early in the season (as early as April 23’d) was somewhat affected by the cool soil emergence; however this provided us with a bit of selection for cool soil emergence issues. Seed was interplanted in bare spots over the next three weeks to further facilitate the crossing of different maturing dates.

Colored corn kernels are of particular interest to us in our breeding experiments due to the high levels of Anthocyanins which free radical scavenging amino acids are thought to be important in both combating and preventing cancers.

This corn also represents progress towards a self sustainable, Open Pollinated sweet corn developed for organic and natural growing systems as well as selected for multiple uses. Fresh Culinary, Dried or made into corn meal, and ornamental uses. Also represents an attempt at developing a “Value Added Seed” line with the added value present in the free amino acids that pericap color imparts. This experiment also represents an attempt at developing defined color traits in the early milk stage of sweet corn for the purpose of attracting market customers and for the added nutrition of the pigmentations of these corn kernels.

Note:

“Value Added Seed” - Is a term that I use to describe seed of special interest which contain added traits which set them apart from standard varieties. Particularly traits which make the seed novel and in most cases higher in nutrition than alternative seed.

Alan Bishops note on the Pedigree:

The following is a listing of the corns included in the original mass cross of 2007 as well as some descriptive notes regarding each variety:

Ruby Queen Hybrid- Sugar Enhanced deep red kernelled hybrid variety introduced by Burpee. Tolerant of Rust and Stewarts Wilt. Not cool soil tolerant but a good source of color and anthocyanins. Color apparent at milk stage.

Blue Jade-Open Pollinated SU variety sourced through www.seedsavers.org . Very diminutive and dwarf variety that is actually acceptable for pot cultures. Short season, developed in the north. Deep blue kernels at maturity, increasing in color as the conversion of starch progresses. Apparently somewhat drought tolerant. Planted throughout the three week period. Color apparent at late milk/early starch stage
Millersburg Red Sweet Corn- Open Pollinated SU variety that was sourced locally in neighboring Orange County Indiana. Large Kernelled late season variety, not as deep red as ruby queen, more subdued earth tone and diluted red color. Large Ears and Tall plants. Color apparent at late milk stage

Millersburg small- Open Pollinated SU Variety, sourced from the same location as above but smaller diminutive plants that mature early, probably the result of inbreeding depression. NEarly identical to above variety. Color apparent at late milk stage

Red 101-Open Pollinated SU variety, sourced from Purdue University. No history was reported other than a possible breeding line from a “corn lab” once located in Clark County Indiana. Late season, large eared and kernelled, deep red cultivars. Tolerant of Stewarts Wilt, cold tolerant seed. Three ears to a stalk. Color apparent at milk stage.

Mushrooms Martian Double Red Sweet Corn- Open Pollinated SU Variety. Sourced through Sow Organic Seed. Bred by Dr. Alan Kapuler of peace seeds. Purple kernelled mid-season type, high in anthocyanins (reportedly higher than that of blueberries), mid to late season. Pedigree includes “True Platinum”. Color apparent at milk stage

Triple Play- Open Pollinated SU variety from Seeds of Change. Could not locate a history or a breeder. Small plants bear three small ears of SU type corn which matures to shades of blue, yellow, and white. Color apparent at late milk stage

Black Mexican- Open Pollinated SU Variety. Reportedly grown in the New York area by Native Americans, primitive and early form of sweet corn. Small plants which produce ears which turn from white to deep blue. Not nearly as sweet as modern varieties even SU types. Color apparent at starch stage

Black Puckers-Open Pollinated SU Variety. Sourced from a seed trade. Nearly identical to Black Mexican with slightly different shaped kernels and some crossing with a red variety. No History Provided. Color apparent at starch stage

Country Gentleman-Open Pollinated SU Variety. Sourced from www.seedsavers.org . Old fashioned white sweet corn. Late maturing, large kernelled and large eared corn, popular with home gardeners. Apparently a parent of popular SU and SE hybrids Silver Queen and Silver King

White 101- Open Pollinated SU Variety. Sourced through Purdue University. Large plants, very late season, near last to mature. Large ears and huge kernels. Makes a good roasting corn but not so good boiled.

Hopi-Pink Sweet Strain- Open Pollinated SU Variety sourced through a trade. A sweet version of the Hopi-Pink flour corn popular among seed traders and corn collectors. Appeared to suffer some amount of inbreeding depression. Beautiful Pink Kernels of sweet corn. Mid Season type. Color apparent at milk stage.

Hookers Sweet- SU, Open Pollinated type. Grown By Ira Hooker and offered by Seeds of Change. White/yellow kernelled sweet corn of good quality, great for roasting. Color is apparent at late milk stage.

Howling Mob- SU, Open Pollinated type. Old fashioned roasting corn, sweeter than most old roasting ears. Late season, large ears, large kernels. Tolerant of Stewarts wilt.

Black?-SU, Open Pollinated type. Very early season. Sourced locally from a farm stand customer. No history given other than grown in the family for years. Appears to differ from other black types. Color apparent at late milk stage.

Double Standard- SU, Open Pollinated bi-color type. Sourced from abundant life seed foundation. Could find no history or pedigree or breeder.

Washington County Orange- SU, Open Pollinated type. Gifted to me by an elderly farming couple years ago. Apparently a selection of a mutant field corn plant from back in the 50’s. Grown for generations by the same family. Mid-Season. Yellow Kernels turn orange-ish red at late milk stage.

Silver King- SE, Hybrid Type. Great tasting and high yielding modern white hybrid.

Golden Bantam- SU, Open Pollinated type. Popular with home gardeners, originally introduced by Burpee’s Seeds man. Plump golden kernels. Mid season type.

Ashworth- SU, Open Pollinated type. Early season sweet corn developed by Fred Ashworth originally supposedly named “rat selected”. Great early season type.

Pastel Colors-SU, Open Pollinated type. Gifted to me by an Appalachian friend in Manchester KY, represents work with segregating crosses of flint types and sweet types. Mixed seed stock from various selections. Late season, large ear types. Colors present in milk stage.

Festival Multicolor-SE/SU types. Developed by Ken Ettlinger of The Long Island Seed Project.

Four other unnamed segregates were also massed into the field. These segregates represented my earliest attempts at sweet corn breeding and were comprised of various crosses of the above.

I feel that it is important for the reader to know that each of the varieties listed above in the cross are also being maintained in their pure state in our living seed bank at Hip-Gnosis Seed Development to preserve their cultural heritage and genetic diversity. Some are being further refined for possible future release. Of particular interest is the Pastel Color line for further development and release.

Seed was selected from the most productive, drought tolerant, healthy, and interesting plants and bulked together for distribution and planting in 2008.


Several new seed stocks have since been added to the mix to further integrate positive traits which we will begin selecting for after this seasons new mass cross. The seed stocks added to the mix include:

Rainbow Inca-SU, Open Pollinated Type. Developed by Dr. Alan Kapular from a mix of southwestern and heirloom sweet corns as well as a large eared, white Chokelo variety from Peru.

Painted Hills-SU, Open Pollinated Type. Developed by Dr. Alan Kapular from a cross of breeder Dave Christianson’s flint corn “Painted Mountain” crossed to Ashworth. Nice diversity of colors, very genetically diverse, large kernelled type.

Cocopah-SU, Open Pollinated Type. Obtained from Native Seeds/SEARCH. A southwestern Native American variety of primitive sweet corn in a wide rainbow of colors.


Future Development:

This year we will have two selections of Astronomy Domine that we will work with. The first will be the original stock with the added genetics mentioned above in a new mass cross. The selection criteria will as always range a wide array of positive traits including cool soil germination and emergence, tolerance to disease, lodging resistance, drought tolerance, and taste, coloration in milk stage, pest tolerance, and taste.

This corn could be widely selected and allowed to re-hybridize every season or diverse selections could be made and selected for uniformity. The idea here is to basically develop an excellent open pollinated corn for organic systems which also incorporates enhanced nutrition and fills a niche market, while also striving to develop possibly the most genetically diverse sweet corn ever introduced.

The second selection of Astronomy Domine will include the original stock and the added genetics mentioned above inter cropped with a white SE type sweet corn, most likely Silver King. The Silver King will be planted in alternating rows and detasslled. This should lead to the large ears and large kernels of Silver King in the array of colors of Astronomy Domine while maintaining the SE genetics for enhanced sugar. The corn from the mother Silver King plants will be used for the fresh market and seed will also be bulked into seed saved from the 2008 crop for future development.

I can and do forsee future crosses planted in mass for years to come with this project, corns only benefit from hybridization and as long as I can keep introducing new genetics to the mix, particularly those of colored genes I will probably do so.

Much of my work with this corn experiment was inspired by Dave Christianson who has spent thirty plus years breeding his Painted Mountain Flint corn.

I will update this pedigree and research as the growing season in 2008 and selection work begins.

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Also...the corn without a summer...it does well here late planted and has amazed folks with the quick growth and early maturity. I planted the red kernel corn only. I had some seed from my 2008 crop grown at Monroe, WA.

Roy’s Calais flint corn is an open-pollinated flint corn originally cultivated by the western Abenaki (Sokoki) people in Vermont, and subsequently grown and maintained by pioneer farmers, including Roy and Ruth Fair of North Calais, VT. In 1996 Tom Stearns obtained the seed from local farmers like Mike and Doug Guy, who had received the corn and seed-saving information from Roy Fair. Tom Stearns crossed all of the inbred strains and grew out the variety, reintroducing it through his company, High Mowing Seeds of Wolcott, VT.
www.slowfoodusa.org/images/ark_products/ark-prod-royscalaisflintcorn-01.jpg

Photo courtesy of Heather Jerrett, High Mowing SeedsThe strain is somewhat variable, but plants typically grow 6 to 7 feet tall and bear 8- to 12-inch-long ears with eight rows of kernels that vary in color from golden yellow to dark maroon red. The red gene is recessive, and a higher percentage of red kernels must be planted to maintain the color variation. According to a report from Cornell, the seed does not germinate as well in cold spring soil as well as some other older varieties; yet its brief time to harvest (90-95 days to dry field corn) makes Roy’s Calais’ a reliable cultivar for short-season growing areas. According to Tom Stearns, it is the second shortest-season corn variety in the world, after ‘Painted Mountain’, a modern OP variety for which Roy’s Calais is one of many parents.

In taste evaluations of different corns conducted by Fedco Seeds, the cornmeal ground from Roy’s Calais flint corn has proven superior in terms of taste and nutritional quality. A little sticky it can be eaten as a sweet corn, but is mostly used for posole or hominy. Its protein content is significantly higher than most flint corns (11% to 12% instead of 9%). It is rendered more nutritious through the process of nixtamalization, which involves soaking the seeds overnight in water and a small amount of fine wood ashes or hydrated lime, then slow-cooking in the same way as soaked dried beans. The resulting hominy (posole) is rich in niacin and complex protein, and it can be used in many dishes (soups and stews, polenta) and as masa flour for tortillas or tamales. The corn has a buttery aroma and a rich, creamy flavor.

The history and cultural significance of this corn is great. Bands of the western Abenaki (Sokoki) people grew corn and other crops (including beans and squash) for centuries, and it is estimated that some 250 acres of land east of Lake Champlain was under cultivation at one time.

This flint corn, or some closely related variety, was the only type to survive and produce a crop in Vermont during the infamous Year Without a Summer (1816), when snow fell in June and killing frosts struck in every summer month. The unusually cold weather resulted from the ash cloud that filled the upper atmosphere and blanketed the Northern Hemisphere following the April 1815 eruption of Mount Tambora—located halfway around the globe, on the island of Sumbawa in the Dutch East Indies.

In rural areas of New England, and in many parts of western and central Europe, the disastrous growing season of 1816 precipitated what has been described as “the last great subsistence crisis in the western world.” This remarkable year, in New England history and folklore, has also been dubbed The Mackerel Year (presumably from the increased reliance on fish in the local diet) and “Eighteen Hundred and Near Froze to Death”. And, although certain crops, like potatoes and apples, produced record harvests in New England, the widespread failure of the corn harvest throughout the region represented a serious problem for both humans and livestock. Corn prices skyrocketed on the Philadelphia market, going from $1.50 a bushel in April 1816 to $3.11 a bushel in May 1817.

In Vermont, some rural families were said to have subsisted on hedgehogs, boiled nettles, and clover heads. At the same time, some settlements became virtual ghost towns overnight, as farmers either sold out or simply abandoned their homes for greener pastures in the newly settled territories to the west. At one time, Granby, VT had been a prosperous town with more than 100 families; after the Cold Summer of 1816, however, only three families still remained there.

Although a few regional seed producers now carry this variety, it is still largely unknown and under-appreciated. For instance, the variety was not offered through the 2007 Seed Savers Exchange Yearbook; it is also not listed in USDA’s flint corn collection. Its main potential is for growers who live in northern or short-season areas, who are often unable to grow most varieties of flour and flint corns to maturity and allow them to dry sufficiently in the field before the first autumn frosts.

It is a gamble planting this late but with the rains it is difficult to disk up oxbow bottoms much sooner.

I will use the same methods that my ancestors had used, handpicking and husking the ears of corn. A farmer walked up and down the rows, throwing the individual ear corn into a slowly moving, horse-drawn wagon (now where's my horse?).
I will also probably have to shock the corn for drying. In my youth some farmers gathered stalks of corn into shocks, for drying in the field, and later harvested the ears of corn from them. Shocking corn was a labor-intensive, time-consuming practice, but it continued for years as another method of saving and drying corn.

Tom Wagner

[thefuture]

Glad to see this posting. I am about to take a long hiatus from trying to grow corn unless I can get a crop this year. In the last 2 years I've tried 4 times and only once got a few piddly ears. Maybe the last 2 years of spring time drought killed it but I need something more reliable for energy. I am betting on potato, sweet potatoe and squash for now. Fruit trees when they mature. Oh and frozen melon is about to be my new thing...plus some long keepers

Right now I have the famous painted mountain in the ground and true gold. Dry weather is hurting them although as I speak we got a decent rain going...first in several months.....

[PatrickW]

I'll be interested in following what comes of this. We have similar climates I think, and I'm looking for something that grows well here.

At the moment corn breeding is problematic, because isolation is impossible in a community garden like mine, not to mention finding the space. I might try bagging sometime, but I also have the problem I have to travel to the garden, which makes the timing of something like that difficult. Bagging is also probably more work and time than I have to invest in it right now.

Everyone else seems to grow commercial F1s, and not many OP varieties are for sale around here, so I'm not really sure what's suitable for my climate. This isn't really anything like the midwest corn belt, so I think commercial F1s with chemicals are really what everyone's decided grows best here...

Two years ago I grew 'Double Standard' from Ben at Real Seeds, and it did pretty well:

www.realseeds.co.uk/sweetcorn.html

Last year I grew Alan Kapuler's Painted Hills sweet corn, and it was pretty disappointing. The plants were too variable and not vigorous in my garden, and the yield was about 8 small ears out of 80 or so plants. I also waited too long for harvest, and they were starchy and not very tasty:

www.patnsteph.net/weblog/2009/08/painted-hills-sweet-corn/

Alan Bishop made a really nice comment on this post, and he got me thinking about not starting it indoors like I usually do. Everyone I know starts their corn indoors, it's what I've always done, and I'm afraid to try anything different. Mostly I'm afraid of weeds taking over the plants, and I'm not really sure what to do with cold emergence. I'm afraid our ground may be too wet, the seeds may rot, and I'm not sure how temperatures with this work or which varieties may have this trait.

This year I'm growing Strawberry Popcorn, which is an old Dutch Heirloom. It may be an heirloom other places too, but at one time it was widely grown here. I'm also trying Golden Bantum from Bingenheimer Seeds in Germany. They've adapted it to the German climate, so I'm hoping it will do well here too. So far they both seem to be doing well.

If anyone has any advice or suggestions, I'd love to hear...

[Tom Wagner]

Thanks, Patrick, for the insight on the corn experiment you had last year.

My foray into corn, especially sweet corn, is an attempt to find a suitable alternative sweet corn for this particular field. The renter farmer grows sweet corn and peas on his own property and had a year before had those crops on the property I planted. This farmer is the one with the big tractors and equipment and he has soft winter wheat on the property now adjacent to the corn and other crops I have planted. Planting this corn and a row of different kinds of peas along with lots of tomatoes, potatoes, beans, etc., is partly for his benefit, since he will have to share crop this farm organically next year due to the transitioning from conventional to organic.
The rains have kept most all farmers out of the bottom grounds until just the last week or so of June. This farmer had to get his contract peas in the ground by the deadline of June 23 for the cannery...which he did just before coming across the river to work up this 3 acre plot.

The choice of corns was a belated decision. Since the broad range of days to tassle within the Astronomy Domine will favor the earliest to pollinate the alternate rows of other corn selected for the cool weather of the PNW. The break point may be with 65 day corn...producing good sweet corn to eat but just barely enough time to finish the maturation process and dry down enough during the critical days of late September and early October. I will see then if just picking ears will be sufficient or if I will have to shock the corn to draw the last bit of strength out of the stalks. Due diligence will be afforded to prevent mildewing of the seed under the husks. The corn is in the likeliest area to flood when the November rains commence. The water table is high at this location just yards from the river. I am hoping to dry land farm this crop of corn.

Everything except the Astronomy Domine will be detassled. It shouldn't be a problem as I had hand detassled 30 acres of blue corn lines near Arvin, CA in 1988. That plot had over 100 lines that I had custom hybridized to a Hopi Blue corn in Hawaii in 1987, along with other backcrosses done earlier in Kansas. Some the Mexican strains crossed to the Hopi Blue were over 12 ft tall!

I expect to select for corn shorter than 6 ft tall here, probably closer to 5 ft and even shorter. Anything taller probably won't make in time.

The corn in Western Washington has been stunted with the cold wet weather...corn likes it rather warm...and we rarely had a day out of the fifties or sixties. I looked at the Sunshine OP corn label when I was planting;...it admonished not to plant corn until the soil temps reached 65 F. With the nights down in the upper forties and highs mostly under 70, the need for early corn is a no-brainer.

If, and if, the corn produces viable seed it could be replanted next year to bulk up the production and cross back to Astronomy Domine selections bulked. Who knows? It could be the start of a new generation of sweet corns for food production and seed sales.

The Roy Calais corn, the corn without a summer, (who would'a guessed history repeating itself) can be eaten as a roasting ear as the blurb in the previous post indicated. With the sweet corn genes floating around, the Roy Calais x Astronomy Domine might even be an improvement. I rather like starchy sweet corn, however not like the Mandan Bride types of sweet corn I had in France last year. Even the Golden Bantam in Ireland needs an improvement.

In the South of France, there is a demand that is not being met for hybrid corn made from diverse OP populations of field corn. Perhaps there is a growing concern for sustainable OP corns that are hybrids here too.

Tom Wagner

[thefuture]

Fresh corn is on permament emargo in Bermuda. She who manages to grow a cool season sweet corn has a monopoly from Oct -to say April. With temps in the 60s through, I was always curious about getting in that game.

[Tom Wagner]

www.bv.bm/upload/Embargo%20Notice%20June12to20.pdf

Looks like a lot of things could be on the embargo from time to time

[PatrickW]

That embargo list is kind of interesting. Most countries with embargo lists at least try to make it seem like there is science behind their decisions, but this list looks like it's exclusively intended to keep out cheap imports that would displace locally grown produce. Exceptions are only made for organic produce!

I'll be you have pretty good tasting produce in Bermuda. No US corn, no Dutch tomatoes or cucumbers...

Tom: Roy Calais corn looks really interesting. Depending on how things go this year, I might try that next.

[thefuture]

Yes TW that is the list I get sent to me weekly. All the restaurants, supermarkets and growers are on the said distribution list. Patrick: the list applies to fresh produce only, so for example, frozen american corn is for sale all the time. The organic part is purely because there is no local certification hence organic goods will not be entered on embargo.

There are people with non-certified organic produce (and I'm told at least one has dubious practises - making certification actually relevant - so he can charge far more money than his competitors).

Part of the embargo philosophy relates to infestations known from certain regions. Hence shredded carrots are allowed but not whole etc.

In general, imported produce is of low to mid range in quality - you would be to if picked early, packed 3000 miles away and shipped to a detination. Ironically, the prices are MUCH higher than in, say, the US.

Does anyone else pay $1.50 for an orange? $12.50 for a 5 llb bag of organic potatoes? $3 for a fig? $4.50 for a head of lettuce? Every week I over hear people complaining about the price. Only a few say they will then grow their own. Priviledges can have their drawbacks.

Local produce is generally of superior quality but few farmers can be trusted with the things they apply to their crops. Chemical city. I don't even think this country has regulations to manage GMO imports....no one is deliberately doing it that I know of but there is nothing to stop them....ironiically, the regs insist that I cannot plant any colour corn but yellow.....

try and stop me....

[thefuture]

oh and supermarkets sometimes try to use organic produce as a way out of buying local. they would rather buy from heaviliy subsidized US farmers or heavily underpaid south american farmers than local. bringing things in under an oganic label is one way to skirt the rules. ironically, they could and their clients give a d**n about organic...they just want lowest cost food. When imported organic costs less than locally produced "conventional" something is very wrong huh?

Local farmers must compete with MEGA farms. To put it in context, there is only 735 acres of arable land in my ENTIRE country. A single farm from a single supermarket vendor list will exceed that....

[PatrickW]

I live in the old center of Amsterdam, and we went through a similar process here with local small businesses. We had fixed opening times for all shops, 52 hours per week, so mom and pop stores wouldn't face too much competition. They also didn't allow 'big box' stores on the edge of the city for a long time, in order to protect small businesses.

We don't quite have 24 hour shopping yet, but they've relaxed a lot of the rules in recent years and big business is taking over many things in the city.

I like buying things locally, and I certainly buy all my produce and dairy from local farmers -- usually from the farmers themselves at local markets.

What I really hate however is going across the street and buying beer from the local liquor store and paying 30-50% too much for the same thing I can get elsewhere. About half of all households in the neighborhood don't have cars, and they take advantage of that and mark their products up too much knowing they have a virtual monopoly on these customers. It's just a rip off. Instead I get into my car and buy my beer from a big box store on the edge of the city.

Other businesses in the neighborhood like restaurants, hardware stores or delicatessens are more expensive, but not unreasonable, and I'm much more willing to buy from them. I even feel a little sorry for them that they have so much competition from other places, probably making their prices lower than they should be. Local businesses like these are very important for the neighborhood, and the people that run them often don't make a lot of money.

This is all a hard balance to keep straight.

[thefuture]

Once is becomes apparent that oil wells are drying up, local will rule again. In the mean time, we build local skills and compete with the oil fueled competitors.

[johno]

Glad to see you working with corn, Tom! I've been working with AD from the original batch for a few year now, and it surprises me every year. I'm working on a MUCH smaller scale than you are, so I try to include seed from s many ears as possible.

[Tom Wagner]

At one time I had a corn that I called the 100 Colors Corn. A person could literally count the different colors and shades in a single ear and count to 100. The trick to getting those colors meant mixing certain ears and selecting some extra kernel colors of a hue I won't disclose here. I sold the seed in my Tater Mater Seed catalog during the 80's but I don't think I sold much of it. The line is no longer extant.

However, I was offered some four year old seed of Painted Mountain and planted it downwind from the AD corn (Astronomy Domine). If it makes any viable seed to harvest before freezing, it will be half sweet corn. I am including a blurb from Dave's webpage on the PM corn.

Painted Mountain is not a hybrid variety, it is an open pollinated genepool. It is descended from over 70 Native corns rescued from Indians and homesteaders who lived in the harshest climates of the Northern Rockies and Great Plains regions of the US and Canada. Some of the ancestors of Painted Mountain are now extinct, and live on only in this gene pool. This genetic diversity is readily seen in the amazing range of colors in the plants and kernels. It also means that Painted Mountain can be adapted to new areas and further selected for better performance.

The thing is....I could perform a facsimile of years ago and produce a sweet corn that is 100 colors in just about three/five years. I like what
Dave says about adapting the corn to a new area.

Tom Wagner

[dkelly]

Hi I have a multiclored sweet corn that seems to be vigorous and a produce tasty rainbow cobs pretty easily. be happy to share it to be introduced to your mass cross.
have the minature blue jade harvesting now.. seems to be a little shy producer for me now but that could be just me. I have been wanting to minaturize my rainbow corn but think maybe there is a more vigorus yellow type ? golden bantam? The shorter the better I am thinking.

[Tom Wagner]

Blue Jade corn...hmmm...where have a read about that one? Oh, yes...it is part of the Astronomy Domine corn of Alan Bishop's.

Here is what Alan says about it...

Blue Jade-Open Pollinated SU variety sourced through www.seedsavers.org . Very diminutive and dwarf variety that is actually acceptable for pot cultures. Short season, developed in the north. Deep blue kernels at maturity, increasing in color as the conversion of starch progresses. Apparently somewhat drought tolerant. Planted throughout the three week period. Color apparent at late milk/early starch stage

Therefore, any corn of yours, DKelly, would need to be put into next years detassled rows. I would guess that the ears that make in this years Astronomy Domine project would be used as pollinators.

However, if earliness is the game, the corn that is forming tassels first out of all the varieties I have is Painted Mountain.

Tom Wagner