A few years ago, we mixed about 25 varieties of corn together and planted them in a patch.
Then we planted them again the next year. Then skipped a year.
This spring, we planted again, in a huge patch.
This is what we’ve harvested so far:
The yields have not been impressive and most of the cobs are small.
However, the pollination was better this year than the last time we planted.
Interestingly, the yellow, white and purple kernels seem to have won over all the other colors in the original mix.
I would say we’re going to get about 40-50lbs of corn from 600′ of corn rows.
This might be expected, as we planted this corn in acid, sandy pasture and only gave it a sprinkling of Steve’s Mix at the beginning to get it running. The idea was to breed for survival at the beginning. It survived, and grew without further irrigation or fertilization, but any serious corn farmer would scoff at these yields.
I will plant it again and see if it improves, as the landrace may stabilize from this point and be stronger; however, I do not have high hopes.
It would be interesting to see how it performs in well-manured, rich, limed soil. Maybe it would go crazy, considering its ability to provide a yield with almost no care.
Here’s a video from the corn patch:
5 comments
Wonder if we will see these seeds in Daisy’s store? Would be surely appreciated by some folks to get their hands on some good germplasm for continuing on this Landrace project.
Yes – it is there now: https://www.etsy.com/shop/GoodGardens
what spacing did you plant your corn? I planted my Indian corn at 3 foot intervals when I was doing a garden far from any faucet and didn’t water. We are in a Mediterranean climate here and don’t get much rain from June to August, so the wide planting helped with the soil moisture – also we are on heavy clay so there is more moisture maintained in the soil than in light sandy soils . You have to have a lot of area though, since 1 plant per square yard eats up a lot of space.
In my experience you get to choose what colors you want to cultivate, but I found that red is dominant in my corn, so I push for the more “entertaining” colors. I don’t know if that helps or hinders the flavor. The deep garnet ears have reddish purplish tints to the shucks and leaves, and the cobs tend to be dark red too. I also like the “calico type” ears speckled iwth blues and whites, but the red ears tend to be a solid color.
My founding corn was several ears of decorative corn I bought from the bargain bin about the first of December 20 years ago, and I have been reseeding with them yearly. Working with sweet corn growers, I was aware that overbreeding your seed can lead to “breaking” the genetics, where you either wind up with the male inflorescences growing out of the ears, and/or messed up ears, where there is multiple cobs per ear. I suspect it is going back to be more like its Teosinte ancestry. I cull those hard, and I will cut the tops off of the plants to prevent them fertilizing other ears. My founding stock was small, though and I suspect it is pretty inbred. I try to keep and plant multiple years of seed corn together to keep things as broad as I can. I have small jars hidden in the freezer for this purpose.
I also get input from the neighbors who plant sweet corn in their garden close enough for stray pollen to find its way in, and I have bought “hominy” corn, bulk from the grocery store, to get some additional genetics in as well. (I am trying to source some Peruvian or Choclo corn since it looks cool too, but if I cared a lot about it I would have manage to do it by now)
Mine is Flint corn, and it takes a bit to get it ground fine for flour or meal. It grits up nicely if you want to feed it to your chickens, though. It also makes decent hominy, and it parches up nicely in a pan and sometimes will pop. Your son’s looks like more of a dent corn, so I suspect the hull is thinner and it will make a better flour.
Once you get your landrace developed for surviving on your land, you might consider selecting to match what you plan to use the corn for, be it flour, meal or hominy. you have a broader founding group than I ever did. I can make a rough cornbread with mine, but anything that needs corn flour requires me going to the store.
I now grow corn reflexively (I mean for 20 years it is either a hobby or an obsession), and you gave me some good insight into planting from some of your videos in the past.
I planted these at 3′ spacing between rows, and about 8-10″ between plants in row. I would love to see what your corn looks like.
I will send some pics from last year if I can figure out how. Mine are about elbow-high right now, our season is behind yours.
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