UK Maize

[Tim DH]

Tomorrow, hopefully, is direct sowing day for maize. Seed saved from the best dozen cobs from each of the last four years. So that is a notional 48 mother plants. Sowing depth 4.5", controlled by the pliers.

[Martin Mikulcik]

Why so deep?

Edit:  oh for lodging.  Is your stand particularly thin because corn doesn't have that problem here and we have 40mph wind off the plains. 

[Tim DH]

Hi Martin,
      I don't think its just wind speed with us. I live in a built up area which I guess increases the turbulence. Last year, one of my maize patches looked like someone had set off a bomb in the middle of it. Stalks pushed in all directions from a central spot. That was exceptional.
     The usual problem is the constantly changing direction of the wind, which can worry a hole round the plants. Of course its difficult to scientifically measure/prove, but I reckon deeper planting helps reduce wind rock.
     It is also possible that I get slightly less slug damage on the emerging seedlings with deeper planting.

[Tim DH]

Here is this years selection of seed cobs.
You'll note I've almost succeeded in eliminating the blue. This was because my wife didn't like the blue colour in the kitchen. It gives a cold/grey colour to the food. HOWEVER, she got as far as separating 'blue' (and deeper coloured) seeds out of cooking, ended up with a 'blue' jar of seeds, cooked that so as not to waste it, and discovered that she prefers the flavour! SO  I'll be selecting some extra blue seeds off other cobs, just to re-introduce the colour!!
I guess the logical extension of that means that I might start selecting against white/yellow seeds in future. (But I haven't asked that question yet!!)

The other selection features, notably deep planting and early cob dry down, have remained constant.

[Carol Deppe]

Hello Tim,
Whether the black tastes good or awful depends on what you are trying to do with it. In my experience, when you use a variety with a multicolored mix with a lot of black in it in baked goods with corn as the only grain the bread tastes like mud. Those who like black in baked goods usually are using mostly wheat flour with the corn being half or less. However black is great nixtamalized or baked into corn chips. The black kernels ruin any flour corn for parching. They taste awful parched.

The lavender kernels in the second ear from left are black or blue with a recessive modifier that converts color to lavender/magenta but has no color alone. And with clear pericarp and flinty layer white and minimal.

Red/pink pericarp over white/clear aleurone over white but minimal flinty layer also gives a great parching corn. Likewise the same except with strpes or starbursts of red and white pericarp. All good parching corns are flour corns.

If you introduce more black into your corn you will ruin it for most uses. Suggest you intro more black into only part and grow it at one end of field and get the black and yellow out of some and grow it at the other.

Those whose staple is corn often have a white flour or dent corn as their staple because yellow clashes with nearly everything you might put into a sandwich. Black is more like pumpernickle bread. Good occassionally with certain things but not routinely as a staple. Of course different people can have different oPinions. However, when a friend of mine went to Guatemala and brought back a dozen parching corn varieties they were all flour corns with exactly the pericarp/aleurone/flint color combinations I had figured out independently.

I note your ears are all pencil-cob. Much easier to dry down than fatter ears.