Dried sweetcorn

[Dianne1234567]

Can anyone tell me if you can self save sweetcorn? I had one extra corn on the cob which I have dried out and now taken sweetcorn off the cob. Can I use this next year as seeds? Or is it not worth the risk? Has anyone else tried it? Please help!

[Jeanied]

This will depend on whether it was a F1 or not, Dianne - if it was then it probably isn't worth it as you need a batch of seedlings to come true to type and all flower at the same time, so you get good pollination in the block. Or have I got the wrong end of the F1 hybrid cross thing?

[zazen999]

This will depend on whether it was a F1 or not, Dianne - if it was then it probably isn't worth it as you need a batch of seedlings to come true to type and all flower at the same time, so you get good pollination in the block. Or have I got the wrong end of the F1 hybrid cross thing?

Spot on.

I save heritage varieties; but only when the variety didn't flower at the same time as neighbouring sweetcorn crops. Dianne - do you know what the variety was?

[Snadger]

This will depend on whether it was a F1 or not, Dianne - if it was then it probably isn't worth it as you need a batch of seedlings to come true to type and all flower at the same time, so you get good pollination in the block. Or have I got the wrong end of the F1 hybrid cross thing?

I think you're right Jeanied! Because sweetcorn isn't indigenous to this country, most of the decent stuff is an F1 hybrid to allow for comparatively short, cold summers. (upt North anyway!)

If it isn't an F1 and has done well in your area...........go for it Dianne!

[Dianne1234567]

Thank you for your replies Jeanied and Snadger. I am pretty sure it was an F1 variety, so am I getting this right, it is worth getting new seed rather than bothering with this.

[Alison]

Not only has it got to be an open pollinated type, sweetcorn is also a difficult seed to save properly as it needs to have a large number of plants to ensure that you don't lose the genetic diversity of the strain and basically end up with a weaker plant. I can't remember the exact details but I've got a book upstairs which explains it all.

[Two_Sheds]

I saved some Double Standard (OP) seed to replant. It isn't a very good sweetcorn anyway (compared to the F1s) so I don't know why I bothered; and the resulting crop was pitiful: small cobs, empty cobs, fairly tough and tasteless.

imo, sweetcorn is worth spending the money on decent seed

[gojiberry]

Have to agree with TS, to get lovely succulent sweetcorn in this country you need to get a good F1 seed and make sure that it is planted well away from any other sweetcorn.

Ian

[Alison]

I've grown double standard a couple of times but always from the original seeds. It's grown pretty well but I've never saved the seeds due to my understanding that you need a lot of plants and I only grow about a dozen. Am going to try an F1 supersweet variety this year to see how I get on with that.