Highly Colorful Sweetcorn

[Joseph Lofthouse]

Or perhaps I'm unknowingly selecting for higher amounts of chlorophyll in those with high anthocyanins. Who knows. It may or may not be similar in other species.

Once upon a time, I grew a corn from Hopiland that had dark green leaves. I was fascinated by it. I only grew it once. One of those things that got lost among so many thousands of varieties. It probably contributed genetics to Astronomy Domine. I still daydream about the possibility of a high chlorophyll corn.

With the high elevation, and cold nights in my garden, the anthocyanins can get rambunctious.

[AndrewB]

Joseph, I just found some old forgotten corn seeds in the basement. One of them was in a sealed jar with a rubber cork. It was from you and was my lost seed for Astronomy Domine Sweet Corn and "Very Early Salmon on exposure", whatever that means. Regardless it had a significant portion of seeds that were purple and appeared to come from purple cobs. I purchased a new packet from baker creek as well, but there were only about 3-5 purple seeds that appeared to have come from a non-purple cob.

Anyway, I'm happy to have found it. I will be attempting to grow it out around 50% old style purple Astronomy Domine (with a few salmon like colored kernels) and about 50% Double Red Sweetcorn. It'll be weird trying to pack it in a raised bed, but I have no other options right now. I did just assemble a 7ft tall indoor grow tent, so theoretically i could now breed corn indoors in the winter. Not sure how well that would work, but I am a bit of a mad scientist.

Anyway, I guess I will save some seed from this experiment to attempt the conversion of my purple Indian corn into sweetcorn in future years or by use by collaborators in other gardens.

[AndrewB]

I just planted some sweet corn. Earliest planting yet, and I honestly don't have the room (planted in the radish bed where i could have used it for some tomatoes). Planted half dark kerneled Astronomy Domine and half Double Red. Planted a few Country Gentleman, Japanese Waxy, and an unknown blue sweetcorn that I will detassel. I have enough AD and DR to replant if any die with early spring snow. I'm expecting the CG corn and the blue corn will probably not make it. But if they do, perhaps a red shoepeg corn would be interesting. I expect the Double Red will do fine with the cold and any snow we get between now and summer.

[Jeremy Weiss]

Wonder if that "unknown blue" could be Bellingham Blue. Did you ever get seed from somewhere called Rich Farms (the only place I know of that ever had that corn)?

It's not all that likely (Blue Jade is a far commoner blue sweetcorn, so a more likely choice) but I wonder.