Post by macmex on Oct 1, 2013 8:47:15 GMT -6
Mesquakie Indian
Have you ever considered growing a non-sweet variety of corn? My family and I lived nearly 14 years in Mexico, spending much time with the rural and Native American population. Among that group of people corn is revered. Among that group of people sweet corn is nearly unknown. Oh, they use their corn for roasting ears. But it's not sweet. Instead it tastes like... er... corn! Our family came to appreciate this kind of roasting ear. Though we also like sweet corn, we get along quite well without it. And, since corn crosses so easily, we decided simply to grow non-sweet corn in our garden.
For seed saving purposes, corn can be a bit challenging. It crosses easily. Isolation is the best way to maintain a variety. Hand pollination (bagging) is possible, and sometimes done on a commercial scale. But that can be a really large task. For starters, the consensus is that a minimum population to maintain a strong and vigorous seed stock is 200 plants. 200 plants takes more space than you might think. I have heard that one can get by with 30 plants, if seed is saved (and replanted) from every one of them. But really, the general rule with corn is, "the larger the population for seed production, the better." If neither time, nor money, nor space were an issue, I'd love to plant two to four acres of any given variety and do a grid type selection of the strongest, most productive plants, so as to continuously improve the variety. That means, one would map out a grid of the entire field and select only the strongest, most productive plants, in any given grid, to go into the coming year's seed stock. The grid approach is preferable, because different parts of a field may have varying conditions, and just because most of the biggest, strongest plants are in the SW corner, doesn't mean that all the best genetics are are there. Another part of the field might have smaller plants, on the whole, but the strongest plant from that particular grid might well be exhibiting resistance to adverse conditions. Saving seed from corn can be fairly simple, or it can become very involved, depending on the will of the one doing it. But we do need people to be maintaining these old seed stocks!
There is hardly a grain more suited for small scale agriculture. Corn, among all the grains, is not that hard to process by hand. It makes a versatile meal and excellent animal feed, both grain and forage.
The corn pictured above is Mesquakie Indian, which I purchased, back in 2005 from Sandhill Preservation Center. This corn has a fascinating history. Mary Ketelsen, somewhere in Iowa, received her seed from her parents, who received it from their parents... who received it from the Mesquakie Indians, in a trade, when they first arrived to homestead. Over the years they maintained it. But it's pretty obvious, that some other strains of corn (perhaps corn belt dent) did occasionally get mixed in. Mary was elderly when she heard that Glenn maintained and distributed old fashioned corns. She contacted him about "her corn." But she passed away before she could send him a sample. One of her children remembered her desire and sent Glenn a sample. From that sample, I believe all the existing seed of this strain is descended.
I suspect Mesquakie Indian was originally a flint corn. Now it's a "flinty dent." I chose the variety because I wanted resistance from lodging (falling over). Glenn Drowns recommended it because it was one of the best, in his collection, for sturdy roots and stalks. You'll notice, if you look closely at the picture, that this is truly a MULTICOLORED corn. I am always amazed, when shucking the ears, at all the diverse colors. This year we had a lot of browns crop up. One year we had a pure dark blue ear! This year we had one "nubbin" or an ear which was pure brown! It's pictured in the top center of the photo.
Our crop was miniscule this year. But that's because of the grasshopper plague we experienced. The corn was under attack for over a month. Grasshoppers consumed entire ears of corn, while they were still tender and green. But the harvest reminds me so much of the native corns I used to see in homes out in the sierra, down in central Mexico. True, the ears aren't very symetrical or large. But THEY PRODUCED! I will mix this year's seed with samples from several previous years, when I re-plant. This technique is one way that one can enlarge the gene pool when unable to grow out large quantites of a given variety.
If you have space consider growing such a corn in 2014. You haven't tasted cornbread until you've made your own from freshly ground corn, grown in your own garden!
George
