Sweet corn

[John Most]

I am wondering what seed to get for the coming year. So many choices- su,se, homozygous, heterozygous, synergistic, triple sweet, super sweet- the list goes on-

what happened to plain old sweet corn? I'm confused.

[Domesticated_Mr. Know It All]

http://www.cartoonstock.com/newscartoons/cartoonists/rni/lowres/rnin42l.jpg

[boylesboats]

I am wondering what seed to get for the coming year. So many choices- su,se, homozygous, heterozygous, synergistic, triple sweet, super sweet- the list goes on-

what happened to plain old sweet corn? I'm confused.

All those funny names for a corn.... I alway buys plain old sweet corn, just to cut the "bulls" with funny long names... Even with "six shooter" is a joke... Hybrids after hybrids it does not makes any sense to me... I usually shop here;http://gurneys.com/Default.asp?bhcd2=1169612775
For my seeds...

[garyspear]

just be sure that you don't have incompatable hybrids around. many of the super sweet varieties become as nasty as field corn if you get them to close to other varieties. UNDER NO CIRCUMSTANCES PLANT POPCORN NEAR IT. makes for some nasty eats.

[glenallen]

"Golden Bantam", not a hybrid.
If no other corn is grown nearby you can save some seed for next year.

[John Most]

I am definately out of the open pollinated "country gentelman, stowels evergreen" stage of sweet corn eating.:o I had some of the super sweet variety last year and it was almost impossible to go back to the good old silver queen I was growing. I am wondering though what it takes to make a corn super sweet- gene splicing? Gene alteration? I dont know if I want to have that on my plate no matter how good it tastes. I wasnt much for genetics in high school biology class so I am a bit mystified.

[huisjen]

From the FEDCO Seeds catalog Corn section:


Seed catalogs in the 1800s featured "Indian Corn", decorative multi-colored ears with soft starchy kernels easily ground into flour or with flinty kernals often used to make corn meal and grits; dent corn with indented kernels eated fresh or roasted in the milk stage or used to make flour, corn meal, grits and cereal; field corn for animal forage and silage; and sugar corn, forerunner fo today's sweet corn. Sweet corn, probably originally a mutation of flint or dent corn or both, first appeared in a seed catalog in 1828 and became popular a generation later. Many of the old varieties had great names, my all time favorite a white sweet corn called Howling Mob, which I grew in 2004. Alas, I found it nothing to howl about. As sweet corn became the first crop to be hybridized, most of the open pollinated varieties disappeared from commerce between 1930 and 1970. Open pollinated varieties do not hold as long, nor are they as sweet as modern hybrids and will require a change in taste preferences if they are ever to come back into vogue.

Most of our recent introductions have been homozygous sugary enhanced crosses (seven from the superb breeding program at Mesa Maise). All SE sweet corn traces back to a single inbred developed in the 1960s in Illinois by Dr. Dusty Rhodes, ILL677a. Our trialers have found sugary enhanced corn to be especially suitable to our climate, with good cool-soil tolerance and a near perfect blend of sugars and corn flavor.

www.fedcoseeds.com

Dan

[garyspear]

don't worry john sweet or corn of anykind does not exist in nature. The indians of central and south america selectivly breed it into existance. A good case of genetic tampering. most of the catalogs designate the genetic mutants with the designations EH, se and sh2. the sh2 has a "shrunken" gene that gives it longer shelf life. weather or not this was done through breeding or in a lab I don't know. also I have not heard as of yet that there are any mutants with the dna of say an ant or a pig or anything like that. don't think i would want to venture into eating such food.

[John Most]

I see in one catalog of an insect protected corn with something called "Attribute". Im guessing this is one of the bacillus thurigensis (sp?)bred corns? Is this one a franken corn? Not that Id probably buy any of that anyway probably as the minimum aorder appears to be 25,000 seeds.

[htom]

Last year, of the varieties that I know that we ate:

Double Delicious (se)
Honey and Cream (su)
Silver Queen (su)
Kandy Korn (se)
Peaches and Cream (se)

my favorite was either Honey and Cream or Peaches and Cream.

Probably half of the corn we got at the market was "bi-color super sweet"(sh2), the only variety name I heard was "SuperSweet Jubilee", most were "I don't know".

I think that freshness is probably a bigger factor than variety.