Gaspe flint corn

[BeanWonderin]

While looking for seeds that grow well in my climate I came across a company called Great Lakes Staple Seeds this past year and bookmarked the site for my 2021 growing season. Looking at the site just now, I see that they are selling the Gaspe flint corn - https://greatlakesstapleseeds.com/c...021-planting-season/products/gaspe-flint-corn. I don't think I'll be growing that one this year because I've already made my plans for corn - but some of you might be interested in it. It looks like there is an option to buy a "Breeders Delight" package which seems to be selected from a more controlled population for further breeding. That's something I haven't seen before.

 

[flowerbug]

While looking for seeds that grow well in my climate I came across a company called Great Lakes Staple Seeds this past year and bookmarked the site for my 2021 growing season. Looking at the site just now, I see that they are selling the Gaspe flint corn - https://greatlakesstapleseeds.com/c...021-planting-season/products/gaspe-flint-corn. I don't think I'll be growing that one this year because I've already made my plans for corn - but some of you might be interested in it. It looks like there is an option to buy a "Breeders Delight" package which seems to be selected from a more controlled population for further breeding. That's something I haven't seen before.

@Eleanor has posted here in the past, but i'm not sure she is around very often or at all now.

 

[Scott Hucker]

Hello

This year's Gaspe' Breeder's Delight is not a further narrowing of the gene pool, I went for 'broad'. I covered the kitchen table with shoeboxes. From each ear, one by one, I shelled the center of the cob into a small bowl to get consistent, well formed seeds. From the bowl, I took at least 2 seeds for each bin. From the most impressive ears, I pulled at least 3 seeds for the pots. My goals was to produce a mix that when the seeds are planted one by one with no planned thinning, would have the genetic variation of 125 unique mother ears, and hopefully more than 250 fathers. Not very efficient in terms of shelling seed corn, but hopefully very rewarding. My two plots were planted with 9 inch row spacing and were thinned to 10 to 12 inches between plants. So, each of those ears ought to have been pollenated by a dozen plants in a circle of their height.

I would love to trade for more Gaspe linages. So far, most people trace their seeds back to John Sherck, as are mine too. He's put many years into restoring the vitality of this line of corn.

One of my interests in Gaspe is to have a corn that I can plant immediately following the harvest of the earliest fall planted wheat/barley, say, mid-July and still get a corn harvest before winter. I will use some of my seeds to try this in 2021. I may hedge my bets by planting a block of corn, once a week, starting 7/1 and see how they do. While harvesting in 2020, there were probably a few percent of ears that were 7 to 12 days earlier than the herd. In hindsight, I should have kept them separate, but alas, they are 'in the mix'.

Currently, we're small enough that I shell all our seed corn by hand. One ear at at time gives me a chance to make decisions about which part of the ear goes into the eat pile vs sell, and of course, the foundation stock for next year. If there's interest, I might try to squeeze something similar into the preparation of Floriani Red Flint this fall. But to be honest, the fall sure is a crazy time for processing seeds!

Scott (husband of @Eleanor of GLSS)