UK Maize

[Tim DH]

I'm not aware of any Maize growing for human consumption in the UK, apart from the notable exception of Sweetcorn.

My own maize now crops around 600grams per square metre, which compares very favourably to the around 300g/m I get from Wheat or Rye. This is hardly surprising, not least of all because Wheat and Rye stop growing before our best Summer weather!

I originally got interested in Maize as a potential filler for the potato gap, that period of the year when last season's spuds are gone and this season's have yet to come in. Some years down the track, Maize forms a much larger part of the household diet, partly because my (Brazilian born) wife objects to potatoes more than three times a week!

At first most Maize was consumed 'whole grain', tho' a little was dry ground to flour. Now most of it is prepared with ash and wet ground. Our woodburning stove, which is only fed untreated wood, provides the ash.

In following posts I'll detail some of the Maize experiments I've conducted over the last two decades.

[Tim DH]

I first become aware of the potential of Maize in 2002, on a climbing trip to the Italian Dolomites. Polenta was sold in some of the mountain huts as a basic foodstuff. I had no prior knowledge of any European Maize growing, but reasoned that if they can do it in the Alps, I probably can.

At that time the only Maize seed available in the UK was a Hopi Blue, apart from countless number of Sweetcorns! I guess the Hopi was sold as a novelty/decorative Maize. I tried it for a few years. I also tried crossing it with one of the many dwarf early sweetcorns available, discovering that selecting against sweetcorn was very easy on the cob!

Hopi and its offspring proved to be fairly unreliable in my climate. I probably gave up on 'pure' Hopi around 2007, and Hopi hybrids in 2012.  Hopis were dropped, partly because I only have two isolated growing spaces so I have to choose the most promising lines to work on. The other reason for dropping 'blues' was that eating home grown maize was somewhat outside most people's culinary experience and struggled against what one might call palate conservatism! I reckoned that the tendency of blues to look grey on a plate didn't improve its chance of acceptance, so I decided to focus on yellow maizes.

[Tim DH]

The next Maize venture started when talking to a friend of mine who had been brought up on the German speaking side of the Alps. She told me about Ribelmais. I had seen maize growing in the Rhine valley, but I had assumed it was cattle fodder! My friend's mother provided me with a packet of Ribelmais. (I think it had probably been sold for home grinding rather than home growing!)

In its first year the Ribelmais didn't ripen very well, however comparison with my Hopi cobs showed it definitely had promise! Fortunately I had some de-tasseled dwarf early sweetcorn in the Ribelmais patch and the following year, (2007), growing the F1, I had my first decent crop of maize!

Initially I started selecting for the original Ribelmais colour, a sort of ivory white, but after a couple of years I decided to select for yellow instead. It has taken ages to eliminate the sweetcorn gene. This is partly my 'fault' as I choose to plant seed from the previous three years. I like the mixed yellow cobs so probably won't select further on colour.

I sow the seed in an unheated greenhouse in mid April and plant it out about 6 weeks later, burying the seedlings roughly 10cm deeper than they were in the pots. I plant out at 6.25pm. The final height is about 1.8m tall. Harvest starts as the cobs dry, usually about mid September. (The cobs always require supplementary drying.) I guess that makes it a 180 day variety? Which makes me interested in what I read on here about 90 day varieties!!

I'm very happy with this maize, which I call 'Swiss'. It comfortably fills the 'Potato Gap' and regularly shows up on our plates, in various guises, throughout the year. Sadly, it doesn't make good Polenta! I guess because it doesn't have a high enough proportion of Flint starch.

The two 'bottle necks' with this crop are 1) the amount of time required to plant seedlings double deep, and 2) the space/time requirements to properly dry the cobs.

The two most significant potential problems I've encountered are 1) Wind rock (hence the double deep planting) 2) Greenfly infestation of the cobs. The greenfly residue encourages mould growth. I wash badly affected cobs prior to final drying.

This year the yield was 650gpm (not counting the scraps which get fed to the chickens). The 100 seed count of this year's selected mother cobs is 42g.

[Tim DH]

My next maize line started as a hunch. ... Some sweetcorn varieties come with a warning that they must not be planted near other varieties. ... My understanding of sweetcorn is that it is basically a genetically 'sick' maize, which is unable to convert sugar into starch. A step in the sugar-to-starch pathway is missing. SO presumably incompatible sweetcorn cultivars have different steps missing. Growing them together might produce starchy seeds. A disaster in sweetcorn, but just what I want!

I chose two dwarf (about 1.5m) early sweetcorns and planted them together. The resulting cobs showed some starchy seeds!

Discussing this within the family I was warned that the dwarfism in the two parental lines might also be differently mediated. So the same mechanism I had used to overcome 'sweetcorn' might create trouble with large plants. This proved to be slightly true, but a more persistent problem was double dwarfs!

In a standing population of dwarf plants, I could not work out a way of selecting for one dwarf and against the other! Eventually I decided to select just one cob to take the line forward on the thought that doing so would guarantee that one of the dwarfisms would then be massively more prevalent in the future population. Any pollen on the selected cob carrying the other dwarfism would now be easy to select against by de-tasseling any future double dwarfs.

I have very few pictures of this line. (It's not as pretty as the 'Swiss' line!) The cobs are slightly harder to dry. The seeds have a matt skin.  The hundred seed weight is about 26g. I finally came to the conclusion that. ... It had been fun. ... but this line was never going to compete with the 'Swiss' line.

My initial selection of the incompatible pair of sweetcorn was quite blind, based on very little information. Perhaps a different pair would have produced a more useful line.

Tim DH

[Tim DH]

   If you've read this far, you will have gathered that in England we have very limited access to the Maize Gene Pool. Reading on this forum I have got interested in the idea that it might be possible to grow maize from a direct sowing. (It's something I've long suspected, since the Fodder Maize occasionally grown round here must be direct sown.) A number of people seem to have used the wide genetic diversity of Painted Mountain as a starting point for projects, so I set my heart on trying some.

   I did find a UK supplier of PM. ... two websites offer it, but since they both offer exactly the same range of seeds, at the same price, with identical pictures/descriptions, I guess they are just different fronts for the same company. I ordered some seed and was deeply disappointed by what I received. The 100 seed count for the PM was 17grams! It was the sort of stuff which normally gets put in our chicken feed bin.

   I decided to try ordering PM from anyone/anywhere. Some suppliers say on their websites that they don't ship internationally. Some of the rest don't reply to emails. Some do reply, ... negatively! I eventually succeeded in placing an order with Baker Creek. Tho' their website does say that they are not responsible if the shipment gets confiscated or destroyed! It also says that they don't ship to the EU. We are currently in a curious transition period regarding which EU rules apply and which don't. So it was a matter of paying up and waiting. (I also put in an order with an EU based supplier.)

   The Baker Creek order arrived today. Perhaps it arrived courtesy of 'Santa's Sleigh' (the volume of other small parcels in transit at this time of year) making checking everything difficult. Perhaps it was fully checked against who knows which set of rules, and passed. Either way it got through.

   The 100 weight of the Baker Creek seed is 29grams. That's 70% better than the English sample! Incidentally in the process of counting out, I got 91 seeds from the first packet, which declares it contains a min of 50 seeds.

   To say I'm happy is putting it mildly

   Happy Christmas!    Roll on 2022!!

[Tim DH]

Happy Days! Maize planting started today!

My experience of pot started maize suggests that burying the seedlings really deep when planting out is the best insurance against wind rock/lodging. I end up with the soil surface of the pot about 4" below the soil surface of the bed, often completely burying the first leaf in the process. It's a laborious job, which is why I'm interested in trialling direct sown maize.

Of course, Painted Mountain may be inherently more wind resistant than my Swiss maize. So a first experiment is to see how it performs over different planting depths. I'll be scoring it for emergence and standing.

I spent ages trying to work out how to consistently plant the seed to a given, but variable, depth. My best guess solution is using long nosed pliers! The tape on them is to mark different depths. I'm trying 3", 4", 5" and 6". Planting through ground cover fabric.

Tim DH

[reed]

Very interesting project. I'm afraid I can't add much of value as where I live in the US most any corn can be direct planted and grows very well. Just what to wish you good luck and keep us informed of how it goes.

[Tim DH]

Thanks for the encouragement Reed.

I did a second planting today... Again at 3", 4", 5" & 6". Its the next piece of the ground cover along from the first batch. Before I started I checked on the slug population under the cover. It wasn't a large number. The soil temp at 6" is about 10^oC. .... I wish I'd checked it a fortnight ago.

Non of the first batch are showing. I have no idea whether the seed is sitting tight, or if its rotted, or if its been eaten. If the second batch shows up, I'll at least know that the first batch has failed and I can re-sow.


I'll try a third batch, into fresh ground, in about a fortnight.

Tim DH

[Raymondo]

A really interesting project and inspiring to boot.
I'm hoping to start a maize mix next season (I'm in Australia so late November where I live). My main interest is polenta. We don't have great access to corn varieties here being mostly either hybrid sweet corn or animal fodder that is grown but I have managed to put together a mix I'm happy to start with. Since I don't have very many seeds of each of the varieties I'll be starting them in trays and putting up an electric rodent fence one planted out (the cats work hard but they can only eat so many mice!) I'm hoping to harvest enough corn to be able to direct sow from then on.
I'll be selecting reds, oranges and yellows, perhaps allowing a small number of white but definitely no blues or purples. The thought of grey polenta puts me right off!

[Tim DH]

Not posted on here for a while!

Working with (completely new to me) Painted Mountain
This year I'm just testing direct sowing: Spacing, Depth and Planting/Harvest Dates

The trial bed is 12 rows(30cm apart) of five holes (30cm apart)

The right hand four rows were sown on April 11th
Left to Right 1st row 6" deep, 2nd row 5" deep, 3rd row 4" deep 4th row 3" deep
Emergence L to R 0, 0, 3, 2.

The central four rows were sown on April 27th
Left to Right 1st row 6" deep, 2nd row 5" deep, 3rd row 4" deep 4th row 3" deep
Emergence L to R 1, 4, 3, 2.

The left hand four rows were sown on May 11th
Right to Left  1st row 6" deep, 2nd row 5" deep, 3rd row 4" deep 4th row 3" deep
Emergence R to L 1, 2, 4, 1.

SO:
Aggregating the results by date gives:
April 11th 25% Emergence
April 27th 50%
May 11th 40%

Aggregating the results by planting depth gives:
6" 10% Emergence
5" 30%
4" 50%
3" 25%

Plenty of data there to guide a proper planting next year.

Tim DH

[Tim DH]

First two cobs from direct sown Painted Mountain. ... So it is possible in the UK.
The cobs are from plants sown on April 11th . Last frost date for us is around April 25th, and these weren't up by then, so I could go a bit earlier.
The seed size looks respectable, once they are properly dried down I'll weigh a 100 seed count.
Tim DH

[Tim DH]

Time to start evaluating the Painted Mountain experiment.
Pictured below:
Best 4 cobs from April 11th planting (on right) Total weight 323g
Best 4 cobs from April 27th planting (on left) Total weight 325g
Separated by a couple of exceptional Swiss cobs (over 400g each!)
(I've had trouble drying down the cobs from the May 11th planting.)

SO I think I'm settling on sowing a full bed next year, around mid April at 4.5" depth. I'll sow at slightly higher density to counter the predicted germination failure at that date/depth. (Hopefully the selection pressure will result in better germination at that date/depth in subsequent years!)

[Tim DH]

The 100 seed weight of my Painted Mountain is 35g. So a shade over double what the UK supplier was 'prepared' to sell to me!

[Tim DH]

   Ive just finished selecting my yellow flour maize line for this year. Pic of the twelve chosen cobs below. The 100 seed weight for the selected cobs is 44g. I've decided to offer this line on Ebay. I thought it needed a name before it entered the public domain so I've called it Yorkshire Grit. I'm not aware of anything like it (Northern adapted flour maize) being available in the UK. But since, historically, its not a thing, I do wonder how many people might be looking for it!

[Kadence Luneman]

Neat! That looks like a lovely selection