corn seed

[Marshall]

Last year I planted open-pollinated corn for the first time. Of course this year will be the first time planting seed I grew myself. I did a germination test on it last week and it tested 100%. I was kind of surprised as I was expecting high 80’s or low 90’s. Hopefully it will do as well when planted in the ground!

[dominiquer60]

I am in the same boat Marshall, but I have not germ tested yet. I grew a 120 day in NY, Hickory King a white hominy/grits variety, thankfully we had just enough growing degree days to mature some of the 1000 transplants that I put out. I was rather amazed that they made it at all, I planted them late, never fertilized other than a little fish at planting, they survived a minor drought with no irrigation, a storm cell that knocked over acres of trees all around us, Irene and Lee which resulted in a lot of flooding. I chose from plants that remained upright and from that ears that seemed the most mature and filled out. I will be culling the yellowish kernels for I suspect that they cross pollinated with the field corn, though ours was NonGMO, the next farm over uses GMO seed. My fingers are crossed. I wish you well with your seed corn project, keep us posted.

[dominiquer60]

I planted my Hickory King with out a germ test. I selected my 6 best ears from 24 saved from seed, as my plot was very small so I didn’t need much seed, just good seed. My first choice was easy, “the good ear” was uniform with straight rows of large white kernels and great tip fill. Ears 2-6 were a little of a choice, but I think I saved the best genetics from being ground into chicken feed. I shelled each ear by hand culling any kernels unfit for seed and sadly there were a lot of unfit seeds in ears 2-6. “The Good Ear” proved true to name, the kernels were well formed and lacked serious faults or mold.

I used my faithful Planet Jr. #4 to seed 4 40′ rows. I decided to plant 2 rows of the good ear and 2 rows of the careful selected seed from the other ears. The Jr. deposited 2-3 kernels every 8-12 inches and neatly covered them up. The good ear had very acceptable germination and I had to thin a few plants out to avoid overcrowding in those 2 rows. The other 2 rows germinated very poorly with only a few plants in each row with no thinning needed.

I was happy to learn that when I harvested the good ear last November my gut instinct was right, “save it and plant it” I thought. The bad news is that out of 1,000 plants only one ear was worthy of good seed stock. Hopefully this little plot will yield better results than last years, though I did plant these rather late for a 120 day, but my goal is to select for quality and faster maturity. With so few plants I was glad to have my cultivator up and running well, a couple were stepped on but I managed to miss hitting any with steel. Hopefully this fall I will have good ears instead of one.

Howe is your OP corn coming along Marshall?

[Marshall]

Mine is up and doing well. I had a few more acres than I planned on so the last bit I just grabbed a few nice ears form the crib and shelled them. So far it all looks good but it does need cultivated and sprayed soon.

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