I’m very uncertain as to what I want to aim for in corn growing and seed saving.
Im torn between the rather difficult aim keeping some varieties true to type on the one hand and going for an in-house grex on the other hand.At the moment I have a generous amount of saved seed from a conventional yellow corn Medzi (Organic Gardening describe it as extra sweet; I don’t know whether that’s Se or Sh2) and from Double Red. The Medzi numbered about 30 plants and the Double Red about 10. In both cases the seed was taken from only two or three plants.
Is it worth sowing either of those next year, just as an experiment. Am I likely to get weak stunted plants?
In the longer term, I could freeze these seeds and carry on growing a range of other varieties for the next two or three years. Then if the next year I plant them all together and saved seed from all the plants, will I have an effective grex from then on, as the gene pool will have quite a wide range? Or will I end up with a lot of tasteless tough cobs?!
Are there other options which I’ve overlooked? If Double Red are Su (or are they SE?), should I avoid growing Sh2 varieties?
Confusion reigns. Any thoughts gratefully received.
Im torn between the rather difficult aim keeping some varieties true to type on the one hand and going for an in-house grex on the other hand.At the moment I have a generous amount of saved seed from a conventional yellow corn Medzi (Organic Gardening describe it as extra sweet; I don’t know whether that’s Se or Sh2) and from Double Red. The Medzi numbered about 30 plants and the Double Red about 10. In both cases the seed was taken from only two or three plants.
Is it worth sowing either of those next year, just as an experiment. Am I likely to get weak stunted plants?
In the longer term, I could freeze these seeds and carry on growing a range of other varieties for the next two or three years. Then if the next year I plant them all together and saved seed from all the plants, will I have an effective grex from then on, as the gene pool will have quite a wide range? Or will I end up with a lot of tasteless tough cobs?!
Are there other options which I’ve overlooked? If Double Red are Su (or are they SE?), should I avoid growing Sh2 varieties?
Confusion reigns. Any thoughts gratefully received.
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