Hi!
I'm new to deliberate plant breeding, but have been seed saving for the last 5 years or so, mostly from various curcubits, nightshades, and legumes. I don't worry about purity, mostly saving from "whatever grew best" and enjoying the crosses that occasionally show up.
This year I decided to plant Painted Mountain Flour corn, with the idea that I could 1) make corn flour, and 2) play more with plant breeding with something that crosses more readily by selecting for a white and red version (and, as always, a selection that grows and produces in my climate/heavy soil).
I haven't had much luck with corn in the past, but figured the very early and cold tolerant Painted Mountain was a good bet. I mentally allocated about a third of my new tilled garden to the project, ordered seeds, and figured i had plenty of space for variability.
Then I did some reasearch on Painted Mountain and realized why my corn always struggles - I've been planting far too closely - 6" apart, 18 " rows (0.75 sq ft/plant). Oops.
With 3 sq ft/corn plant, I can fit about 54 plants in my garden (6 rows of 9), about 1/4 of the 200 recommended to maintain diversity. My seed buying and starting this year was bigger than my garden and I am tired of tilling sod, so expanding the corn patch isn't an option this year. I am stubborn, so I still want to at least try to save seed and get started this year.
Can anyone give me any suggestions for ways I can approach this? Here's a few things I've thought of:
- If I halve my seed spacing for the first and last row, I could have about 18 extra plants, and accept lower yield from those rows
- If I quarter my seed spacing for the first and last row, and consider them "pollen donors" only, i could have 36 extra plants.
- I could add closer spaced seeds at the end of each row (maybe add about 12 -24 plants)
- I could plant at the larger spacing, save seed this year, then next year plant half saved seed, half previous years seed. (or half seed from another supplier). Then each following year plant half 1 year seed/half 2 year seed).
Are any of these logical solutions? What would you do?
closer spacing gets you more plants, and if you are not looking for production, it is likely ok as long as you get them enough water.
the idea of growing seeds 2 years from your original seeds and them mix the first 2 years for year 3 works
also remember to get seeds from each cob for replanting, don't just mix them all together, some cobs might not get replanted that way.
remember that seeds collected from the bottom of the cob will give you shorter season corn, middle of the cob will not change the growing time of the corn, and top of the cob will give you longer season corn.
also, choose seeds that look different if you have a really low population, it will help with the required diversity.
I can grow 200 painted mountain plants in 200 square feet no problem. Bed five feet wide (I have long arms) and plant one kernel per square foot. I am sure if you give them plenty of space they'll be huge plants and you can save several years seed and mix it to get the population size.
Quote from: spacecase0 on 2020-05-16, 08:23:39 PM
...
remember that seeds collected from the bottom of the cob will give you shorter season corn, middle of the cob will not change the growing time of the corn, and top of the cob will give you longer season corn.
...
I am intrigued: Is it the smaller the seed, the longer to maturity? Because a big seed has a head-start?
That's neat about the place on the cob being related to maturity date - I assume the bottom kernels are pollinated first and therefore pollinated by the first plants to release pollen? Is that the logic?
I made a blood sacrifice to the black fly gods and went and planted the corn this morning. The plan was to plant next weekend but the weather looks good and I realized I wont have time next weekend.
Since you think a mixed year population will probably work, I did 3 rows of full spacing and three rows of half spacing to see what the difference is (~75 seeds), and really just see if it's worth growing. The seed is from a large seed company so I suspect it isnt too inbred. A few weeks ago during a several hour long mind numbing conference call, I sorted the half pound of seed I bought by colour, so planted only white, white and red striped, other colours with red stripes, red kernels, and all the "unique" kernels (mottled, gradient coloured, different shades etc).
I have another 75 seed packet I bought from an independent Canadian grower/ seed company and didnt plant. I will assume the genetics are different, and plant ~ half that seed and half my seed next year (and try to actually have 200+ plants)
I am tempted to go over to my dads and till up his garden, which hasn't been used in a few years, (20×20) and do a second planting with a bigger population of mixed leftover seeds there. But there is an almost zero percent chance he will water it, I dont feel like weeding it, the black flies are even worse there, and August is often rain free, so probably a bad idea.
You have plenty of space to grow 200+ plants. Just not all at the same time :)
Take your seeds and divide them into batches, with each batch being enough to fit the space. Start with one, and grow each batch separately, one batch per year. When you save seeds, make sure you take a little from each plant. When you run out of your original seed, start mixing in some saved seeds. There are lots of mixing algorithms you can use, but the main idea is that each planting has seeds from plants that didn't all grow from the same batch. That way you get the same diversity as a huge patch, but in smaller bites.
Quote from: Ocimum on 2020-05-17, 06:45:18 AM
I am intrigued: Is it the smaller the seed, the longer to maturity? Because a big seed has a head-start?
it has to do with when it is grows and is pollinated.
the ones at the base are first, so they tend to grow shorter season like they were.
some people say that they also have stronger roots, but I have never tested that.
opposite for the ones at the top of the cob.
so I mark my cobs as to when they silk, then get seeds from the appropriate place to bring my corn back to silking (and tasseling on each plant when it silks) all at the same time.
right now they are about 3 weeks apart for all of it, so it takes more water than it needs to and does not give me a larger harvest of the longer season either.
fixing a corn variety can take a few years.
my suggestion to anyone trying to make a good corn variety with limited space,
especially if you someday plan on living off of it when you get more room someday,
grow 2 types that are very similar but from different sources.
then cross them when you get the additional space.
you will not run into inbreeding depression that way.
I almost lost a variety because I only started with 36 plants,
I grew at least 200 plants and saved seeds from all of them in years after.
took 4 years to fail (or was it 5 ?), but it happened.
Well... I may have been counting my corn seedlings before they sprouted... looks like about 50% germination or less, with the corn that did germinate up about 15 or 20 cm already. I am debating if it makes sense to try and fill the holes in the rows. Would corn planted 2 weeks later make a huge difference and not allow the patch to cross pollinate?
Oh... and I discovered my order from the small scale producer shorted the Painted mountain seeds, so unless I reorder from somewhere next year, I wont have the genetic variability I was hoping for.
The best-laid plans of mice and men, gang aft aglay. Especially when you are dealing with seeds, more's the pity.
Quoteunless I reorder from somewhere next year, I wont have the genetic variability I was hoping for.
That isn't a bad idea anyway if you are looking for genetic diversity. Ordering from multiple seed sellers may offer a different genetic mix.
Documenting here, as I tend to lose garden journals.
Currently have aproximately 64 corn plants growing, mostly short/small - hard to tell in some cases if things are a tiller or another corn plant since I planted in clumps. It's been a drought here (more than a month since last rain) and unseasonably hot since I planted, and I've not watered enough, probably. Every time I water, the corn seems to jump 6" overnight. Tallest corn is now chin height (on my 5'4 self), most (likely the second batch) is probably waist height or shorter. The biggest corn has been tasselling for a few weeks now, but I see no signs of silks forming, but the beginnings of cobs on some of the largest plants. Oh, and there are definitely bugs crawling in the smaller corn cobs.
My corn does look nicer than the commerical corn I see while driving - farmers don't typically irrigate here, so the corn is less than waist high (maybe knee high), and I suspect from the close spacing most is grown for silage.
I am considering if I should introduce another/different flour corn into the mix next year for diversity (Cherokee White?), possibly one developed for the hot/humid climate of the east, rather than the cooler/drier climate of Montana. It gets tricky, as the growing season here is still short. I'd prefer not to "lose" this year of corn selection for my climate, but also don't want to kill it with inbreeding. Or perhaps just presoak the seeds, and start it earlier when there is (usually) more water/cooler temps.
I also struggle with eliminating genetic depression in small populations but have developed a few tricks. One is to cross varieties that are significantly different in many ways. I settle on a few traits that I want and look for varieties that have those but are as different as possible in other ways and I try to include several, not just the same one from different sources. One small pack of seed each, of say, five different varieties well mixed in the patch I think would give you a nice start to begin selection.
I have a theory too that maybe one reason small populations of corn are so prone to depression is because a higher percentage of the seeds are selfed, that is the mother and father are the same plant. I fight that by detasseling particular plants that for what ever reason I favor as a mother plant. Then I try to pollinate it with several others that have good traits. Those plants then make a high % of the next season planting.
I didn't like Painted Mountain in my garden. It tended to grow only 4 feet or so before maturing and ears often overshoot the husks which leads to all kinds of bug and mold problems in my climate. Cherokee White is a very large, very long season corn, so crossing it to PM would introduce a lot of diversity I suspect but the difference in DTM would make timing a little tough.
reed:
"I have a theory too that maybe one reason small populations of corn are so prone to depression is because a higher percentage of the seeds are selfed, that is the mother and father are the same plant. I fight that by detasseling particular plants that for what ever reason I favor as a mother plant. Then I try to pollinate it with several others that have good traits. Those plants then make a high % of the next season planting."
I agree but rather than detasseling I grow 3 white 'Moonshiner' corns that are heat and drought resistant and grow well in poor, heavy soils like mine. They are 120 days seed to harvest and lack the phytonutrients and high protein and oil of colored varieties in orange, blue/black, and Harmony Grain that are 80-110 day corns.
White is recessive to all colors so any colored kernels on the white 'Moonshiner' cobs are a cross.
Quote from: Woody Gardener on 2020-07-07, 08:08:12 AM
White is recessive to all colors so any colored kernels on the white 'Moonshiner' cobs are a cross.
Yep that would work real well but not in my project cause the blue color is in the aleurone and I'm working to eliminate aleurone color. I want a variety of colors but each individual ear a single color. I pulled some great flinty, colorless aleuron seeds out of Harmony. Eventually I also want to eliminate variation in endosperm but like you said, since white is recessive I don't think that will be too hard to do.
Quote from: spacecase0 on 2020-05-16, 08:23:39 PM
remember that seeds collected from the bottom of the cob will give you shorter season corn, middle of the cob will not change the growing time of the corn, and top of the cob will give you longer season corn.
I dont understand how this works, can you explain please.
Quote from: Richard Watson on 2020-07-08, 01:29:59 PM
I dont understand how this works, can you explain please.
so what I said in reply #6 of this thread was not clear enough...
let me try to do better
silks from the lower part of the cob show up before the ones from the upper part of the cob,
so, you are selecting for sooner or later if you save the seeds from the ends of the cobs
Quote from: spacecase0 on 2020-07-14, 10:47:57 PMsilks from the lower part of the cob show up before the ones from the upper part of the cob, so, you are selecting for sooner or later if you save the seeds from the ends of the cobs
The other half of the equation would be that, presumably, some of the later appearing silks might be pollinated by other plants that tasseled later, and thus lengthening the days to maturity.
But it wouldn't matter for those seeds which are selfed, because they have the same mother and father. And it wouldn't matter for highly uniform varieties where the whole population tassels at the same time.
My fussing aside, looks like I got corn cobs after all.
Interestingly, a lot of the first to tassle plants were last to silk, and a couple silked before tassling. Combined with some other weirdness in morphology, I can confidently say that the Painted Mountain corn plants dont read internet articles on the stages of corn formation :) I am shocked by how tall it got, the tallest is maybe 7-8 ft, way taller than the local commercial corn.
I counted 62 cobs today, not counting the couple of stalks that have fallen over. Most have 2 cobs/stalk, or none. Several ears have overshot the husks.
I really need to have a bigger population size to work with. I would like to cull probably 30% if possible. Instead, I detassled 3 or 4. Surviving/producing/not falling over is the only other selection I have done. I do have beans climbing some of them, and doing well and holding things up.
Plan for next year is definitely to increase the size of the corn patch assuming I use the flour, I am enjoying growing them. Maybe also use the smaller spacing of the two I trialed, I am not yet seeing any difference in productivity between the two spacings.
One way to avoid inbreeding depression in small population sizes would be to form a small group of growers that regularly exchange seed. That keeps the effective population size larger (and also provides some insurance against one person losing the strain).
Well... all my flour corn is harvested now. Not sure if I would call it a success.
I got maybe 25 cobs off the patch, the local wildlife probably got a similar number. I have saved seeds into 4 seperate identical jars/copies, using the criteria of saving one seed to each batch for every cob, and 2 seeds if it was a particularly impressive cob. I chose to save seeds from the bottoms of the cobs in an atempt to encourage earlier maturity, it would ideally be nice two beable to grow 2 varieities (flour corn and a popcorn) seperated by time, and this variety started drying down almost 2 months before first frost date,
Notes/lessons learned
- I think I need to move towards a uniform harvesting/ripening date. As is, it took a month with a few cobs drying down while others were still silking, which was plenty of time for the local wildlife to find out and invite their friends to the feast. Later maturing cobs had far more predation. Later cobs also had disappointing pollination. Don't regret overseeing a second batch, but will over plant in the future to avoid it.
- Beans climbing the corn was disappointing. By the time the beans have begun to mature, the corn stalks are almost dead, so the beans are pulling them down, might work for a longer seasoned variety. No difference earlier in lodging between my rows with beans and rows without. Got far better production in the shaded corn of beans than in my normal bean area.
- i tried a few different spacings/plantings. Larger spacing didn't seem to make much of a difference, except that those in grew in clumps were not as successful as those grown in rows.
- many overshot corn husks, but I think those were somewhat selected against as those were the birds favourites
I am hoping to try a bigger patch next year with a mix of saved and purchased seed, and see if my saved seed does better than the purchased, which would be encouraging, I would also consider bringing in another variety or at least another seed source into the mix.
Quote from: Yaz on 2020-07-06, 08:45:10 AM
Documenting here, as I tend to lose garden journals.
Currently have aproximately 64 corn plants growing, mostly short/small - hard to tell in some cases if things are a tiller or another corn plant since I planted in clumps. It's been a drought here (more than a month since last rain) and unseasonably hot since I planted, and I've not watered enough, probably. Every time I water, the corn seems to jump 6" overnight. Tallest corn is now chin height (on my 5'4 self), most (likely the second batch) is probably waist height or shorter. The biggest corn has been tasselling for a few weeks now, but I see no signs of silks forming, but the beginnings of cobs on some of the largest plants. Oh, and there are definitely bugs crawling in the smaller corn cobs.
My corn does look nicer than the commerical corn I see while driving - farmers don't typically irrigate here, so the corn is less than waist high (maybe knee high), and I suspect from the close spacing most is grown for silage.
I am considering if I should introduce another/different flour corn into the mix next year for diversity (Cherokee White?), possibly one developed for the hot/humid climate of the east, rather than the cooler/drier climate of Montana. It gets tricky, as the growing season here is still short. I'd prefer not to "lose" this year of corn selection for my climate, but also don't want to kill it with inbreeding. Or perhaps just presoak the seeds, and start it earlier when there is (usually) more water/cooler temps.
Yaz, do you honestly believe that you will inbreed your corn to the point you will kill it?
If you are only breeding one strain, then of course you are going to suffer some inbreeding depression.
The corn you have chosen was created by a very talented breeder from something like 60 varieties.
There is a lot of genetic wealth in your seed.
Here is a strategy you may wish to follow.
Grow your corn.
As much as yoir space and efforts will allow
If you notice some inbreeding depression, then introduce a new batch of the same corn.
If yours is truly inbred to the point of lower vigour, it would give you hybrid vigour with the new corn, but maintain the same general genotype
If you do want to add a completely new line to your patch, Puruvian morado will enjoy a cooler climate, or even Montana lavender clay that is also bred by the same guy as your painted mountain.
Both have a good amount of anthocyanin, so will be nutritious as well as attractive.
Combining different generations of your same seed is a sound technique, but I don't understand why the 200 plant minimum.
The Feroes island horse breed was repoulated from only 5 inbred individuals.
I believe the 200 plant minimum comes from the book "Seed to Seed" by Suzanne Ashworth. I also believe it mostly pertains to grossly inbred varieties. Painted Mountain was bred from many lines but I wonder if the 200 rule might still apply. I wonder that because the very specific mountain environment where it was bred might have quite rapidly reduced it to some very specific traits. It does not do well at all here in Indiana, nearly all ears overshoot the husks badly. Carol Deppe's manna series is selected from PM and also has that problem but not quite as bad.
I've heard it said that as long as the original patents represented a wide enough cross, that is different in many ways, that a single ear or even a single kernel could give rise to a new variety. I haven't been quite that limited, but that's the path I've taken and seems to be working very well, even in small populations.
Quote from: nathanp on 2020-05-29, 05:20:00 PM
That isn't a bad idea anyway if you are looking for genetic diversity. Ordering from multiple seed sellers may offer a different genetic mix.
This. I always do this for new corn seed. I also like to at least double up the seed order from each company if possible as well. A tiny little seed packet wont necessarily have much genetic diversity from the population and some seed companies may have started with only a packet of seed to grow themselves. I also like to bet against shady seed sellers in case they are lying about the seed they sold me. Buying the same variety from multiple sellers gives me peace of mind.
For my purple foliage corn population i like to periodically add in new seed from new varieties into the mix.
An example is i want to someday grow glass gem corn and add it to my population. But i also want as much genetic diversity within glass gem as possible. Does anyone know which seed company first introduced glass gem? They probably have the most diversity of that variety i would expect, so i should probably order from them.
Quote from: Andrew Barney on 2021-02-13, 07:37:08 AM
This. I always do this for new corn seed. I also like to at least double up the seed order from each company if possible as well. A tiny little seed packet wont necessarily have much genetic diversity from the population and some seed companies may have started with only a packet of seed to grow themselves. I also like to bet against shady seed sellers in case they are lying about the seed they sold me. Buying the same variety from multiple sellers gives me peace of mind.
For my purple foliage corn population i like to periodically add in new seed from new varieties into the mix.
An example is i want to someday grow glass gem corn and add it to my population. But i also want as much genetic diversity within glass gem as possible. Does anyone know which seed company first introduced glass gem? They probably have the most diversity of that variety i would expect, so i should probably order from them.
It's a good idea to buy from multiple supliers. If thet have held their stock for more than a couple years you should get some degree of heterosis from the *outcross* to a population of the same line.
Breeding your purple corn as a type, rather than a variety is something more people should consider.
A seed permaculture centre (drylands.org.au) near to me only sells blends of peas, so first year saving is an F1.
From what I see from the glass corn a few ppl are breeding their own types, so you should be able to find good quality inbred populations to play with.
If it wasn't a popcorn I'd jump in. It's so pretty.
Quote from: reed on 2021-02-13, 06:30:27 AM
I believe the 200 plant minimum comes from the book "Seed to Seed" by Suzanne Ashworth. I also believe it mostly pertains to grossly inbred varieties. Painted Mountain was bred from many lines but I wonder if the 200 rule might still apply. I wonder that because the very specific mountain environment where it was bred might have quite rapidly reduced it to some very specific traits. It does not do well at all here in Indiana, nearly all ears overshoot the husks badly. Carol Deppe's manna series is selected from PM and also has that problem but not quite as bad.
I've heard it said that as long as the original patents represented a wide enough cross, that is different in many ways, that a single ear or even a single kernel could give rise to a new variety. I haven't been quite that limited, but that's the path I've taken and seems to be working very well, even in small populations.
Thank you.
So someone says something like, with an inbred population it would be good to have at least 200 individuals to maintain diversity, and a little down the track people start thinking they can't breed with less than 200.
Bit further down the track people start believing that anything less than 200 and the population will collapse.
I appreciate how you are using smaller batches. It allows closer observation, better care.
I only bought 100 Hopi pink and 100 Hopi turquoise to go with 100 Hopi blue to start some flour corn up.
They won't all germinate and I will cull plants before they throw pollen.
I wonder if you had a really small amount of corn, it would be worth neutering half the plants.
If you only repopulated a depressed population with the seed from the neutered corn there would be no self pollinated seed planted, at least
You could introduce the other half of the seed crop in later season.
I find this all very useful since I am ALWAYS dealing with less than 200 plants (I only have room for 100, max, and have less than that of most seed lines).
I suppose it also depends on what one is trying to do with the corn. For a lot of my stuff, a fair amount of inbreeding is desirable, since I am trying to "clean up" random corn selected by appearance in order to make a line that has that appearance consistently (for example, getting the floury kernels of a flour/flint with mostly flint corn to get to a point where it is mostly to ideally ALL floury.)
MOST of my corn lines are, or start single ear or two since that is what I find. I get the idea of landraces and grexes but these seem to be for when you are trying to get yield for a region, not for any given appearance. If I tried to do a landrace with my stuff, I'd probably get junk of no use for any further breeding.
My purple corn population has traditionally been planted in a roughly 10ft x 10ft square, so 100 plants each season and I think it is doing okay.
I think the key is that you do what works for you. I think landrace or grex could still work for you, but it would be with only the traits you want. You could only plant flour types for example or only those with some other trait. You could still potentially be mixing lots of varieties, but they would be carefully chosen parent varieties.
You could try the detasseling idea. I like it. It also could help if you detasseled all the flints and that way they would back cross to the flour types quicker.
Technically, the flour corn is ALREADY a grex, as the kernels (unlike most of my corns) came from many many cobs. I just selected and kept those kernels that met my requirements and discarded the others, which has resulted in a seed sample that LOOKS like it all came from one solid white ear (all of the ears were multicolored to start with, but for reasons I don't quite understand there were few that showed full soft starch AND color of either aleurone or pericarp, So the sample looks all white, with the odd pale yellow kernel). That and being miniature corn is all they have in common. The stuff is actually probably heterogeneous for pretty much everything else including such fundamental things as ear shape (some are probably normal "carrot" shape some are likely the stubbier shape a lot of the early accessions were. I'm just hoping that with a few generations of pollinating each other, the number of floury kernels (which probably wasn't above twenty per ear on any) goes up (if the colors come back that will be kept as well, since I can't see any use for this or most of my corns except ornamental purposes.) I actually still have three colored ones that passed (two red one speckled) that I will add in once the flour is better esablished.
Besides this I also have
Accession 2: miniature dent, 24 rows, gourdseed kernels stubby cob, white yellow and pink remnants of one ear (about half or 200 or so kernels)
Accession 3: miniature dent 16 rows, possibly gourdseed shape (it's sometimes hard to tell with miniature corns, whose kernels are often longer and thinner than full size anyway) normal cob, white yellow pink magenta and purple probably about 200 again.
Accession 4: miniature red dent rice type kernels stubby cob. Almost certainly the result of a strawberry/field corn cross. two ears worth (maybe 300 kernels)
Accession 5-6 miniature sweet corn, small (maybe 20-30 kernels) from two ears (one with wide loaf shaped kernels and stubby cob, one with narrow ones and long cob)
Full sized dent corn with strong stippling 2 ears 100 or so kernels total (one ear is a little wider kernelled than the other) white yellow and purple
Full sized stippled flint corn wider color mix than above so being added for improved color (has blue and pink and the yellow back red brown and black)
And then of corse there is the bottle where I toss any sweet kernels I find in ears of Ornamental corn and a little named stuff (like some Volta White)
Not sure if this counts as 'clever' but it has worked for a couple of decades.
I save seed from the best twelve flour cobs each year, in individual wraps. I plant 2 seeds from all of the three previous years wraps. Seventy two plants. So I have 36 mothers (and potentially 216 fathers!) Since this line is grown on an allotment, I guess there is a bit of contamination from the occasional neighbouring sweetcorn blocks. (But I grow way more plants than the sweetcorn growers, so the contamination must be worse in the other direction!)
Tim DH
I also occasionally grow a pollen patch. That is a patch so severely overcrowded that the plants are so stunted that they can barely even produce an ear. But they do produce pollen which I then distribute into the other patch by hand. Any in the pollen patch that grow better than the rest may represent a higher amount of that pollen. If any in the pollen patch manage to make a respectable ear, I'll add some of those seed to the rest for the next year.
I hope a bonus to this is corn that might be better adapted to growing in crowded conditions, allowing in the future to produce a crop in less space and reduce genetic depression in one step.
as I mentioned earlier, I lost a variety with only 36 plants at one point.
something I always ask myself is how did past generations do all of this ?
with corn they were living on it,
if that is the case, the 200 number is a moot point,
the fields were very likely always a larger number than that.
historical accounts of lower bumbers are recorded, my guess is because it was very rare.
anyway,
it was someone in this community that told everyone how to deal with genetic diversity if an Apocalypse happens,
maintain 2 separate lines of corn that are similar, because that is all you can do in a tiny backyard plot.
every other year works.
then after the event mix the 2.
no way you will be growing less than 200 plants if you have to live on them.
was this lofthouse ? tim peaters ? I just can't remember. it was someone, I did not figure this out,
but it is a fantastic idea.
Seems like I remember Carol Deppe saying that if heterozygosity is high enough that a single ear could be developed into a new variety. If that's the case, then crossing any two very different corns should result in a population where genetic depression is avoided, probably for a long time. Crossing many varieties and selecting for just a few important traits while purposely allowing others to remain highly variable should for all practical purposes, eliminate it entirely.
The foundation of my corn is the Mexican landrace Zapalote Chico x a number of northeastern flints, Carol's Cascade Flints, Joseph's harmony composite, already a diverse landrace by itself and a lot more. I'll be adding in still more to try to increase the flinty aspect, but I think just the 25 ears I selected this year are probably more than enough by themselves to keep genetic depression at bay for a long, long time.