New corns of note

[Pulsegleaner]

I just got my Gurney's catalog yesterday, and there are a few interesting new items in the popcorn list.

There is one called "Emerald" which is a green popcorn. Though I would be a little apprehensive about its long term stability (pure green corns don't tend to STAY pure green very long, thanks to transposons, you tend to start getting blues, greys, yellows and whites showing up eventually (they already say it has blue and grey tones).

Of more interest is a corn called "Strawberry DeLite" Which appears to be the latest attempt at trying to make a corn with the strawberry shape (i.e. short stubby cob and rice type kernels) in multicolor. It's not the FIRST time I've seen someone try this ("Harlequin" and "Indian Berries" come to mind.). But they seem to be getting closer with this one (the description mentions reds, pinks, tans, golds, rusts and creams i.e. mostly colors that come from pericarp variation. But the accompanying photo DOES show some purple as well (as well as chinmarking) so there is a LITTLE aleurone variation as well.)

 

[heirloomgal]

Ooooh! That green corn sounds fun! Pretty too!

 

[Zeedman]

While the colors may be interesting, such corns would only be a novelty - unless they are useful popped. I grew Strawberry popcorn years ago, and was deeply disappointed in the popped quality. I was equally disappointed in the popping chickpeas mentioned by Carol Deppe. I sure wish the prohibition on day-neutral nunas popping beans would be lifted, IMO those would be greeted with open arms & a bug 'thumbs up'... especially by those on this forum.

My corn preferences are shifting more toward short-season grain varieties, those that can be ground for flour or corn meal. That will be Painted Mountain again this year... and hopefully Gaspe, which I'm still waiting for. I don't know if I could ever give up home-grown sweet corn, but I'm actually surprised to find myself considering that possibility. A good dry corn yield this year would go a long way toward making that decision easier.

 

[Pulsegleaner]

Ooooh! That green corn sounds fun! Pretty too!

I suppose so. I guess I'm just a bit jaded (pardon the pun) with green corn. I've seen so many green or green yellows (Green n. Gold, Oaxacan Green Dent, Green Bay Packer, John Deere.)

And since I now have that miniature Glass gem like popcorn, which has ALL the colors of the rainbow, a corn that is just one is a little dull.

Actually, to be honest, It is very unlikely I will end up ordering EITHER of these. I have such a backlog of rapidly ageing corn seeds by now that need to be regenerated more urgently.

 

[heirloomgal]

I completely understand the backlog of corn seeds. I have that situation too. Debating between Floriani Flint, Dakota Black, Glass Gem, Japanese Hulless (one new, the rest all ageing seeds).... and then someone is offering Gaspe flint and another Bear Paw on the seed exchange. I wonder how well corn seeds last. I've had some Tom Thumb for years and they still sprout.

 

[baymule]

I had a real good Painted Mountain corn harvest last year. It does make some good cornbread!

 

[Pulsegleaner]

I completely understand the backlog of corn seeds. I have that situation too. Debating between Floriani Flint, Dakota Black, Glass Gem, Japanese Hulless (one new, the rest all ageing seeds).... and then someone is offering Gaspe flint and another Bear Paw on the seed exchange. I wonder how well corn seeds last. I've had some Tom Thumb for years and they still sprout.

Well, my miniature dent, flour and sweet corn kernels are now at least a decade old, and they seem to germinate just fine still when I plant from them (bearing in mind I have usually started those, INDOORS, so they may be pampered). And it's not like I take unusual care of the stuff (I keep it dry of course, but I don't have the room to keep it ALL in the freezer). And I have some corn that is even older; I think Checkered King (yellow/white dent, standard*, wide square kernels, heavy purple stipple) dates back to when I was still visiting Dag Hammarskjold Plaza for my corn. And I KNOW one of my others (white flint, lesser, heavy pink stipple, tan pericarp does).

On the other hand when I got to planting my seed of Evia (a Greek blue and white miniature popcorn), none of it came up. And that was professional seed.

I think the real reason for the backlog is quite simply that, unless you have a LOT of land to spread it out (which I don't) trying to grow more than one corn at a time and keep it "pure" (free from cross pollinations with other varieties) is really hard (especially when you are going in blind and don't know the actual DTM in advance). It's fine to say that only the edges usually get crossed, but when your patch is so small that the edges make up more than 50% of the whole patch, that's a lot. Technically I don't have enough land to grow ANY type of corn and keep the pool ideal, since you're supposed to do 200 plants for that, and I can only hold about 100 (and I don't have that much of most of the corns to begin with).

Add on that, since most of my corn is stuff I have found myself (from combing Farmers markets) I have to work on the assumption that it comes to me pretty mixed up and crossed to being with, and needs several generations of inbreeding/sibling breeding to make whatever trait I want be stable within the population. Put more than one in and let them cross freely, and I would soon probably have garbage where the interesting things I selected those corns for had been swamped out.

And every Fall, a few new ears show up that look worth playing around with. Not as many as when I found the mini dents and such, or when I lucked into the Andean Bonanza (I found a bodega in NYC that was selling ears of multicolored Andean corn as ornamental corn). But some.

* Part of my grading system as to how big the corn is (In terms of size of ear and kernel). While not TOTALLY linked, ear and kernel size tend to go together pretty consistently, so it works for me. and while corn ears cover the whole spectrum of sizes, you do tend to get "nodes" or "clusters" where most corns fit. From biggest to smallest, the grades are,

Giant: The ear I once found the size of a kids baseball bat with the kernels the size of shirt buttons would count there, as well as, I assume, an ear of Cuzco Gigante (I've never seen a full ear in person)

Standard: Normal "full" size, the size of your regulation corn on the cob or field corn ear.

Lesser: Smaller than Standard, but larger than miniature, Some commercial popcorns fit in here, as does that one I mentioned above.

Miniature: The size of a regular miniature popcorn ear (so about as big as a carrot.)

Micro: Even smaller than that. By this point, the only corns that really fit here are Chire's Baby and the other "made for baby corn" corns, and, I guess Kachina's Gift (a corn I got out of the basket of a Kachina Doll, whose ears were about the size of large olives. Don't have it anymore)

Also note that this list only applies to "Long" ear corns (what one would think of as a normal corn ear shape). For stubby ear corns, there tend to be only three divisions, Grenade (where most Andean mountain corns go) Pinecone (middle) and strawberry (size of strawberry corn ear.)

 

[Pulsegleaner]

I realized I left two qualifiers I use out of the above list. I don't USE them much anymore (since they are both not that reliable). But I DO still use some of the terms from time to time, and so it is probably best to define them so no one here gets confused. The two other qualifiers are Arc and Transparency.

Arc is the measurement of the curve of the corn kernels on the ear with respect to the ear itself. In other words, it sort of is what a transverse slice of the corn ear looks like.

At one end of the spectrum you have boxy. This doesn't show up much in Northern corns because they have too many rows. But in Andean corns which can have as few as eight rows, it IS possible to get an ear that is almost square in cross-section.

You then get into a mixture of scallops and irregulars (for those corns that DON'T form neat rows)

At the other end, you get ears where the kernel arc and the cob arc are more or less the same, so that the cross section is a nearly perfect circle. A fair number of dents have this, since their kernels often appress the husk and get flattened on top. The most Extreme example I ever had of this was a corn I called Rainbow Zamia. which had a nearly PERFECTLY smooth surface, as well as VERY wide flattened kernels and a somewhat shorter ear. That's how it got it's name, to me it looked like a Zamia (Cycad) cone.

Transparency is measured by the kernel, not the ear. It's simply the ratio and position of the hard and soft starch in the endosperm, as measured by where and how much light can pass through the kernel (soft starch is opaque, hard starch is translucent). Most of these are pretty obvious (Dent, Flour etc.) but there are a few I add.

Cap: Basically a dentless dent, a corn whose kernels have more or less the same ratio of hard to soft starch as a dent, but without the break in the hard starch at the top that lets it sink down and form a dent.

Shell: A corn that is nearly pure soft starch, but has a thin hard starch shell all around it. I consider most Southwestern Flour corns to actually be shells (as far as I am concerned, it is not until you get to the Andean mountain corns with their near packing peanut like consistency and unbelievable lightness* that you are seeing corn that is basically ALL soft starch.) But they can show up in Eastern corns as well. Actually, if you can find one that grows for you, Shell corns can be really, really handy. The high soft starch content makes for a much finer grind (so you get actual corn flower as opposed to corn meal without having to sift it) while the thin hard starch shell gives some measure of protection against pests. (if you look at insect damaged corn kernels, especially storage insects) you'll notice that they tend to come in and out through soft starch if they can, since it is easier to chew through).

* Andean mountain corn kernels are SO light, they actually float on water. In fact I lost a large portion of my test crop one year when we had a very heavy rain that temporarily flooded the ground. Many of the corn kernels popped up out of the ground and floated away!

 

[heirloomgal]

Jea

I had a real good Painted Mountain corn harvest last year. It does make some good cornbread!

Jealous!

 

[heirloomgal]

@Pulsegleaner When my parents go tot Texas in winter they are often in the Mexican markets, sometimes buying groceries like fresh veggies. They tell me every corn they've ever bought was just beyond awful. I think they've tried several times to eat corn bought fresh at a market. I've asked them every question about it to see where they might be going wrong - are they sure it is for eating fresh, etc. What do you think they are buying to get such terrible fresh corn on the cob? If it is not for drying and being sold as fresh cobs, I can't figure what the problems is.