Saving sweetcorn seeds for next year?

[Kristen]

Thats part of the fun of experimenting!

Sorry, but not for me. I would resent the time spent raising the plants weeding and watering, and the space I could have used for something else, if I then had a crop failure (whether disease, my own negligence of the crop, or an experiment that went wrong). I prefer to only experiment where there is a high chance of success

[poly]

Could this be a ploy from the F1 breeders to keep the cost of there seeds up?

An instance:-

There is a show variety of tomato that is called F1 Cedrico. Most people on our allotments, including myself, are growing the third and fourth generations from it off the tomatoes grown originallyfour years ago,and it seems to get better every year? No distorted,stunted,mishapen tomatoes or plants......in fact all like the original Cedrico tomatoes whose seeds they were grown from. (If not better)
As an experiment, I also grew some Desiree spuds from real tomato seed I harvested myself (little green tomato like fruits). As Desiree is a hybrid of DOY and A N Other I should have had a selection of plants but all that were grown showed exactly the same characteristics as Desiree?

As my signiture says, I like to diversify and prosper!

I think many of the tomato lines used in breeding a tomato variety share similar characteristics in order to give the F1 variety the look and taste they want. Some things like disease resistance aren't always obvious and it's difficult to tell if they have passed on to the F2 line/s. With tomatoes, I quite like growing out some of the hybrid varieties, most often they produce a decent plant and good tasty crop, Tigris F2, Tomkin F2, Santini F4 and Picolini F3 have all been very good this year. Sounds like Cedrico F1 is doing very well with you being de-hybridized, it does look a lovely tomato.

Growing potatoes from From True Potato Seed (tps) is slightly different due to the increased amount of chromosomes they have, which makes it almost impossible for a variety to come true from seed even if it is self pollinated. Whether the seed is selfed or cross pollinated you will likely see variation, although many will be very similar to the parent/s which I think makes them worth the extra little bit of faf to grow them.

[poly]

Never done it before, but do I just let the corn ripen and go hard on the plant?

I'm never going to get all mine eaten and I'm not struck on frozen stuff so I thought I would save myself a bob or two on seed for next year by keping my own seed (corn has done surprisingly well!)
It was F1 swift but I don't mind a variation if I keep my own seed!

They should do ok, the parents of Swift are likely very similar in growth and taste. As it is an F1 the genes will be recombining in your plants next year but they should still be fairly uniform. When I've saved sweet corn for seed I leave them on the plant as long as possible, but once the husks start to go papery they have been ok to pick. I strip them back and leave them somewhere warm and dry to finish off. Keep an eye on the seeds on the cob, discard or put to one side any that are obviously different, as these are likely cross pollinate. Next year just sow the shrunken types, look forward to hearing how they do.

[Kristen]

They should do ok, the parents of Swift are likely very similar in growth and taste.

I read on the seed companies' websites that e.g. different Tendersweet varieties can be safely grown together ... and on forums people saying they grew similar varieties side-by-side and got hard corns mixed in with sweet ones. It wasn't a scientific test, so maybe they got cross pollination from a neighbouring plot, but I'll feel a lot happier if proper research had been done - an opportunity for a horticulture student looking for a project?

[poly]

I think the information most UK seed suppliers give about the different types of sweet corn and which is which - is pants!

I'm still not 100% sure but I think Swift F1 is a sh2 (supersweet) type and should only be grown alongside sh2 varieties or quality may suffer. Frustratingly descriptions on the net vary between companies and to further confuse, T&M say it is fine to grow this variety alongside other types, but then their blurb seems to be describing two varieties at the same time!

Hopefully the seed suppliers will get their act in gear and improve information on the types and how they impact with each other. It would be great to see all companies listing type eg se (sugar enhanced) or sh2 alongside each varieties name they list.

[bananamelon]

when come to cross pollination issues or crossing various vegetable and there various characteristics. I would go with website from university agricultural info site instead seed company.

[BertieFox]

I still think the most profitable experiment would be for amateurs to try to develop a 'super sweet' open pollinated variety by ignoring F1 hybrid seed and using stable types like Sativa Early or Golden Bantam or whatever. Breeding two lines is not that difficult as you simply emasculate one type completely by removing the tassles bearing the male pollen on the variety you don't want to use as the parent and use the pollen from the other one. You might need to assist pollination by shaking the pollen on to the cobs from the male parent variety. If you have access to two separate plots away from other corn, you could also do the cross the opposite way in the same year.

Growing on the resulting cross the next year you could see what you get, and then select the best and sweetest corn for your next experiment.

Why haven't seed companies done this? Well, they used to, but then along came F1 techniques which were much easier to deploy and which use parent lines which in corn produce very different results, such as vigour or disease resistance in one, but starchy tasteless corn, and sweetness but weak spindly growth in the other.

We should all be trying to develop better varieties from simply crossing and selection wherever possible.

There is a superb book for amateurs called 'Breed Your Own Vegetable Varieties' by Carol Deppe, Chelsea Green Publishing, Vermont. Still available through things like Abe Books, maybe through Amazon. Also written by a professional plant breeder but in layman's terms.

[poly]

Trouble is I'm not sure there are many seed companies that would be interested in developing open pollinated sweet corn lines as the general trend are F1's. Although it can be done as in the case of the sweet corn you have been growing (nice to know it is a good one) I think the name Sativa Early is a little misleading, I believe the correct name should be Damaun KS. It is one of three open pollinated sh2 varieties bred at Sativa Rheinau in Switzerland.

I'm not sure what would happen if you tried crossing say Sativa Early with Golden Bantam, would you get the desired results with these two types of sweet corn? Might it work better crossing similar types to achieve the type of corn that would suit your growing and tastes bests? I'd love to have a go but I've a couple of other projects in progress which would make it almost impossible at the moment to try.

But if you are interested in growing out some regular types or sugar extended I've a couple of mixes I can share.

I've been trying to mix in as many types of su corn as I could find to build up gene diversity while looking for a multi coloured regular type sweet corn. I then went on to grow a mix of these su varieties alongside sugar extended types in the hope of developing a sweeter coloured mix. Though I'm not sure I've got the knack of picking out the se types from su for resowing and I think I might rethink this and go for red se cobs instead.

[poly]

Real seeds also seem to be listing one of the above 3 open pollinated varieties, can't really tell which?
SweetCorn Seed

[Alison]

Real seeds also seem to be listing one of the above 3 open pollinated varieties, can't really tell which?
SweetCorn Seed

Real Seeds are great and I love the fact that all they sell are open pollinated ones so you know where you are without thinking. I've grown the bicoloured one before and did OK with it but as I don't really (well at all!) like sweetcorn I never really bothered that much.

[Snadger]

Harvested a sweetcorn cob this evening and although still quite tasty some of the corn is starting to shrivel and hopefully mature. Chooks still enjoyed it though!

Once we get a frost warning I think I'll harvest the remaining 3 or 4 cobs and bring them indoors to dry out.