Post by darwinslair on Aug 20, 2011 5:45:53 GMT -5
Sorry I cannot post photos from the computer I happen to be at. I will get them up on my blog later this weekend.
I have concentrated, the last few years, on growing dry storage corns. These have been flints and flours specifically adapted, mostly by the northern tribes, to growing in our occassionally abrebviated summers.
This year's planting season was especially ....... short. I tried starting in mid april, but we were still getting snows in early May so my strategy of planting successive plots once the the prior had emerged to prevent most crossings did not go well. In a good year I get 16 different varieties in the ground between 4 different gardens. This year I got 9 different ones in the ground.
Of those, I have one complete failure ( due to faulty equipment ) 3 mostly failed (due to weather, weeds & predation) and 5 that appear to be doing well.
NONE of my early plantings did well due to various reasons. The plantings which were done in mid-may to june 1st are fine.
None of the late plantings are drying down yet either.
The early plantings will give me more seed than I planted except a spectacular failure of Bear Island Flint that was due to faulty farming equipment, which honestly was a big deal, as it meant a loss of 18 pounds of seed which if I were going to buy, would be $4 an ounce.
Mandan White Flint, Wamneheza Speckled Flour & Painted Mountain fared poorly. Painted Mountain did the best, but I will get the least from it. of over 1000 plants, all of which gave me 2 fully formed 11-12" ears per plant, I got less than 20 full ears, and another 20 with some kernals. The plants stunted, and the ears formed within a few inches of the ground, leaving them within easy reach of mice and raccoons. For all practical purposes, it was a 99% failure. For Mandan White Flint and Wamneheza Speckled Flour there was weed and germination issues due to the weather.
The next few weeks will be really telling as far as what I will get from what is left. I planted Mandan Flour and Mandan Red Flour together. Seeds are rather indistinguishable and I want a mix anyway. Plants are fairly tall for a Dakota regional flour corn, being about 7' tall and there are no lodging issues. Cobs are set 3-4' off of the ground and are formed well. Only one cob had dried down to where I could pick it and it was fully developed as of Thursday. I will stop by that garden again this week to check progress and harvest cobs as soon as the shucks start drying to prevent animal damage.
Iroquois White Flour looks good. I grew it last year but had a lot of raccoon damage due to lodging leaving the cobs close to the ground. This year I hilled all of it and lodging is minimal. Cob development is well off the ground, 3-4 feet up the stalks, and it should be a banger year for it.
A first try at Dakota Rainbow Flint has me impressed. In crappy soils it is 8' high with no lodging, cob set 4' off the ground, and at least half of the stalks have 2 ears. None of it is drying down yet but I am excited to see how they look.
Grunt (Dan from HGG) sent me Dark Autumn Delight popcorn to try this year as a shorter season but full-sized cob popcorn. I have it in my backyard and for the time being it looks fantastic. Cobs are a bit later in developement than I hoped, but there is a good amount of shade where it is planted, and it was a messed up spring and summer. It did get knocked flat to the ground by a windstorm when it was 6' tall. 5 days later it was fully standing up on its own without any of the stalks curving off of the ground. I was quite impressed by that. Ears are forming high on what are now 9' stalks.
Michel Lacham sent me a mulit-colored open pollinated dent that Victor Kucyk had developed, that Michel has further selected, which contains a lot of genetics from northern flint corns. I am very impressed so far with it. In great soil it is 10' tall, with double ear set over 4' off the ground. In piss-poor crap soil it is 8 feet tall, and again double ear set over 4' off the ground. It is reputed to have protein content in excess of 14% which is unheard of in a dent corn prior to this, much less and OP one, and I assume that is due to the flint corn heritage in its genetics. Being my hope to have high protein corns suitable for animal feed I may do a few acres of this one next year since I will be increasing my Bear Island Flint again instead of having thousands of pounds of it.
Anyway, so that is what I am doing/have done with dry corns this year. I try to keep up with everything on my blog and to post photos there, so check it out.
Tom
threedaughtersfarm.com/wp/
I have concentrated, the last few years, on growing dry storage corns. These have been flints and flours specifically adapted, mostly by the northern tribes, to growing in our occassionally abrebviated summers.
This year's planting season was especially ....... short. I tried starting in mid april, but we were still getting snows in early May so my strategy of planting successive plots once the the prior had emerged to prevent most crossings did not go well. In a good year I get 16 different varieties in the ground between 4 different gardens. This year I got 9 different ones in the ground.
Of those, I have one complete failure ( due to faulty equipment ) 3 mostly failed (due to weather, weeds & predation) and 5 that appear to be doing well.
NONE of my early plantings did well due to various reasons. The plantings which were done in mid-may to june 1st are fine.
None of the late plantings are drying down yet either.
The early plantings will give me more seed than I planted except a spectacular failure of Bear Island Flint that was due to faulty farming equipment, which honestly was a big deal, as it meant a loss of 18 pounds of seed which if I were going to buy, would be $4 an ounce.
Mandan White Flint, Wamneheza Speckled Flour & Painted Mountain fared poorly. Painted Mountain did the best, but I will get the least from it. of over 1000 plants, all of which gave me 2 fully formed 11-12" ears per plant, I got less than 20 full ears, and another 20 with some kernals. The plants stunted, and the ears formed within a few inches of the ground, leaving them within easy reach of mice and raccoons. For all practical purposes, it was a 99% failure. For Mandan White Flint and Wamneheza Speckled Flour there was weed and germination issues due to the weather.
The next few weeks will be really telling as far as what I will get from what is left. I planted Mandan Flour and Mandan Red Flour together. Seeds are rather indistinguishable and I want a mix anyway. Plants are fairly tall for a Dakota regional flour corn, being about 7' tall and there are no lodging issues. Cobs are set 3-4' off of the ground and are formed well. Only one cob had dried down to where I could pick it and it was fully developed as of Thursday. I will stop by that garden again this week to check progress and harvest cobs as soon as the shucks start drying to prevent animal damage.
Iroquois White Flour looks good. I grew it last year but had a lot of raccoon damage due to lodging leaving the cobs close to the ground. This year I hilled all of it and lodging is minimal. Cob development is well off the ground, 3-4 feet up the stalks, and it should be a banger year for it.
A first try at Dakota Rainbow Flint has me impressed. In crappy soils it is 8' high with no lodging, cob set 4' off the ground, and at least half of the stalks have 2 ears. None of it is drying down yet but I am excited to see how they look.
Grunt (Dan from HGG) sent me Dark Autumn Delight popcorn to try this year as a shorter season but full-sized cob popcorn. I have it in my backyard and for the time being it looks fantastic. Cobs are a bit later in developement than I hoped, but there is a good amount of shade where it is planted, and it was a messed up spring and summer. It did get knocked flat to the ground by a windstorm when it was 6' tall. 5 days later it was fully standing up on its own without any of the stalks curving off of the ground. I was quite impressed by that. Ears are forming high on what are now 9' stalks.
Michel Lacham sent me a mulit-colored open pollinated dent that Victor Kucyk had developed, that Michel has further selected, which contains a lot of genetics from northern flint corns. I am very impressed so far with it. In great soil it is 10' tall, with double ear set over 4' off the ground. In piss-poor crap soil it is 8 feet tall, and again double ear set over 4' off the ground. It is reputed to have protein content in excess of 14% which is unheard of in a dent corn prior to this, much less and OP one, and I assume that is due to the flint corn heritage in its genetics. Being my hope to have high protein corns suitable for animal feed I may do a few acres of this one next year since I will be increasing my Bear Island Flint again instead of having thousands of pounds of it.
Anyway, so that is what I am doing/have done with dry corns this year. I try to keep up with everything on my blog and to post photos there, so check it out.
Tom
threedaughtersfarm.com/wp/