Success with sweetcorn

[Zelenina]

The Organic Catalogue also has several varieties of non-hybrid sweetcorn

Sweetcorn

[Zelenina]

That's an interesting dehybridisation project Snadger. Good luck with it! One thing you might need to watch out for is something called cytoplasmic male sterility (CMS). I'm not sure if it's been used in mooli radishes, but it's often used by breeders of hybrids of veggies that are difficult to hand pollinate and/or have lots of small flowers that only produce one or two seeds for each hand pollination.

The effect of CMS is to stop flowers producing pollen, so they can't self-pollinate. They can then be used as the female parent of a hybrid which will only be pollinated by the desired male parent planted close to them.

It's due to a genetic mutation, either a natural one or artificially induced in a lab. So if the F2 generation is grown out, some of them could be male sterile too, which isn't a good thing in a new open pollinated variety. So you need to check all your F2 plants to make sure they can produce pollen before you include their seeds in your breeding stock.

[Zelenina]

Double post. Don't know how that happened.

But in the meantime I checked, and cytoplasmic male sterility is used in radishes. In fact it was first discovered in a Japanese radish and seems to be a natural mutation that first arose in wild radishes, which then crossed with an escaped domestic radish. That gene and other similar ones have been used a lot by radish breeders since then, and have been introduced into other brassica species for the purpose of creating F1 hybrids.

[Snadger]

The Organic Catalogue also has several varieties of non-hybrid sweetcorn

Sweetcorn

Nice one Zelenina!Many thanks! More to choose from than what I first thought!

Wonder if anyone on here have grown any of these to good effect?

[Chris11]

Have grown a few Sundance F1 plants near the compost bin where the soil is very rich from nutrients leeching out from the compost bin into the nearby soil. They share a sunny corner near some sunflowers.

Still don't get that many cobs, but the ones I've had have tasted fantastic

[SusieG]

Have grown a few Sundance F1 plants near the compost bin where the soil is very rich from nutrients leeching out from the compost bin into the nearby soil. They share a sunny corner near some sunflowers.

Still don't get that many cobs, but the ones I've had have tasted fantastic


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It looks very tasty, Chris.....

Just tell me ~ how do I tell when my sweetcorn is ready to pick ............... ?
Thanks....

[Bex2012]

Just tell me ~ how do I tell when my sweetcorn is ready to pick ............... ?
Thanks....

I think its when the hairy bits on the ends go brown. Its the method Ive been using and my sweetcorn has been beyond lush. You can also peel back some of the leaves and burst a kernel with your nail. If the kernel is fat, and the juice is milky, then thats another good sign.

[SusieG]

I think its when the hairy bits on the ends go brown. Its the method Ive been using and my sweetcorn has been beyond lush. You can also peel back some of the leaves and burst a kernel with your nail. If the kernel is fat, and the juice is milky, then thats another good sign.

Thanks Bex ~ here's a piccie of mine taken just now ...... (might test one as you suggested, later today ...... )

[burnie]

I have has some success this year growing sweetcorn under a tall frame covered with fleece, the wind did damage a bit of the fleece, but was easily replaced. I have grown F1 Swift and have a couple of cobs on each plant, only grew a dozen, but have harvested a few and eaten them raw, straight of the plant, delicious.