While my corn is growing, there is little I can do other than sporadic weeding, watering and taking pictures:
Corn Varieties 🌽
I have planted Golden Bantam sweet corn.
I understand most of the world's corn production is not of the sweet variety.
I would like to try other varieties, but:
- I do not have the facilities for milling flour
- I can not store the product
- I do not want to cross-pollinate
Homozygous Seeds
I bought homozygous seeds, specifically.
Normally, I would buy heterozygous (aka hybrid aka F1) seeds.
Hybrids usually only have advantages compared to their homozygous parents, except one:
Producing Seeds
Having a homozygous (aka P) genome and breeding it with itself means I can harvest quality seeds for next year.
... which is exactly what I am trying to do.
That is why I can only have this single variety, so I can avoid any cross-breeding.
Mendel's Laws
I do not want to use this post to showcase my understanding of Mendel's Laws.
Instead I would like to ask how it is at all possible that I bought Golden Bantam F1 last year.
To create a uniform F1, you'd need 2 different P genomes, which can not both be Golden Bantam (?)
I am honestly confused.
I assume, it was Golden Bantam + X hybrid, and they did not bother to mention, which other genome they bred with.
For the challenge
If you have not already mentioned it:
Which variety are you growing in 2022 and why?
Part 4: Germination
Part 3: Planting
Part 2: Preparations
Part 1: My Location