Bi color corn polination question

[Gary350]

Who knows if Peaches & Cream sweet corn is Yellow corn pollinated with White corn OR White corn pollinated with Yellow corn. It seems logical to me bi color corn is pollinated with both white & yellow corn.

I wonder if I save seeds from this years Peaches & Cream crop what will saved seeds grow next year?

[applestar]

This is a guess on my part, but it’s somewhat more likely white pollinated with/by yellow.

My reasoning is that since yellow is dominant, yellow pollinating white will show up right away, but white pollinating yellow would be recessive and won’t show up until the next generation.

Oh! I guess... If the yellow being pollinated by is already a hybrid Y-y, then white pollen can result in some white kernels.

[Gary350]

This is a guess on my part, but it’s somewhat more likely white pollinated with/by yellow.

My reasoning is that since yellow is dominant, yellow pollinating white will show up right away, but white pollinating yellow would be recessive and won’t show up until the next generation.

Oh! I guess... If the yellow being pollinated by is already a hybrid Y-y, then white pollen can result in some white kernels.

Is it worth saving seeds from this years crop to plant next year? I am trying to save seeds from all crops so I never need to buy seeds again.

[applestar]

Most commercially popular corn are hybrids so I expect Peaches and Cream would be too...

According to this website —

Peaches & Cream Hybrid Sweet Corn - Vegetable Seeds - Sustainable Seed Company

https://sustainableseedco.com/products/ ... sweet-corn
https://sustainableseedco.com/products/ ... 1113074728

Zea mays var rugosa (hybrid)
Peaches & Cream Hybrid Sweet Corn (82 days
Sugary Enhancer Hybrid (SE)

So you would be de-hybridizing the variety for a while if you save seeds. I’m pretty sure SE is kind that you CAN save seeds if you’re willing to select for desirable traits by trial-and-error for several years. Some of the other new hybrids are not good for saving — if I remember correctly some are programmed to self destruct, and you know you can’t save Monsanto corn seeds, though I believe those genetically engineered ones are not consumer direct table corn — so far anyway

There ARE Heirloom and landrace corn varieties that will breed true as long as you don’t have to worry about cross-contamination. Not always as "reliable" in performance in the modern hybrid sense though. So far, I like Stowell’s Evergreen and Country Gentleman. I might like Double Red Sweet. I’m also continuing to play with my own Medley #sweet# to see how they end up.

[Gary350]

Only way to know for sure what saved seeds will grow is save 50 seeds to plant then see what happens. 72 day crop harvest will be about Aug 1st. It will take a month to get dry seed from ears to grow another crop this year. I might be able to plant saved seeds about Sept 1st. First frost is about Nov 7 it might be possible to get a test crop before frost.

25 years ago I grew 2nd crops of corn Aug 1st from bought seeds it was a nightmare to get seeds to germinate in 100 degree weather with almost no rain. Even with me watering plants several times every day crop was stunted & small in 100 degree heat. Before I risk growing a whole crop from saved seeds next year I need to test seeds this year.

[applestar]

Fun side-benefit of this experiment if you go forward is that you might harvest all or mostly yellow, all or mostly white, as well as mixed in various proportions color ears.

Tricky part would be to mark — maybe by general location in the garden — plants/ears matching ones you’ve harvested and taste tested as young/immature ears, then protect and let those grow in place until fully mature so the seeds would be viable for growing.

[TomatoNut95]

That's why I never grow hybrids 'cause if I save seed, I'd rather get the same thing and not an unknown parent.

[PraticalGardener]

I'm also curious if Peaches and Cream sweet corn is white-on-yellow, yellow-on-white, or some of each. My guess is the 'easiest' with the fewest number of total corn plants is white-on yellow, but I'm just drawing that guess from the punnet squares. Does anyone have a Peaches and Cream corn seed packet to inform us the ratio of yellow to white seeds packed?

I would guess that you would visually see an increase in the ratio of yellow seeds, based on a Punnet Square.

Is it worth saving seeds from a hybrid? That probably depends on your goal and resources (land, time, energy, helping hands). How much do you mind the taste possibly changing in the next generations? The easiest way is probably to keep buying seeds (unless they have trouble surviving or are no longer available to buy), yet perhaps it can also be done with a little planning ahead. Depending on your resources, it may be possible to reduce how often to keep buying new seeds, from every other year (buy seed, save one year, plant saved seeds, eat all corn, repeat), to once every few generations to hopefully avoid inbreeding depression. (Granted I have no experience here)

It looks like you guys already 'covered all the bases', but I hope you don't mind my chipping in anyways.
If I assume that Peaches and Cream was simply bred as a hybrid, then we can physically save the seeds and grow them. If it is simply a bred hybrid, we can anticipate that the resulting offspring may vary in traits from the hybrid parent plants, like with a punnet square. Perhaps the next generation of corn plants would vary in height, thriving in cooler environments (or not), taste, and more. It is a somewhat a mystery since we don't know of parent plants of the hybrid, therefore what traits those had to start with.

If I understand correctly on dominant and recessive corn traits so far, Yellow is a dominant color over recessive 'hidden' white corn kernel color. Color might be the 'easy' part to choose how many to select for, using a punnet square. In short, if you want both colors, make sure to keep the white corn kernels in favor over the yellow, as the yellow color gene will 'hide' the white recessive color gene. I'm guessing to keep at least half of your seeds as white corn kernels. You might also consider breeding some 'white on white', for keeping the white corn kernel color; as 'white on yellow' will give you somewhere between none and half of the kernals in a white color.


Granted, we have the ability to detassel the pollen-making tassel off the top of the corn plant, such as on a grown yellow-kernel corn plant. Depending on the spacing between more corn plants with tassels, and fewer plants de-tasseled, you may have to manually pollinate the corn pollen onto the corn silks.
Or you can plant seperate patches of yellow seeds isolated from the patch of planted white seeds.

It would take a lot of time to 'stabilize' the offspring to have specific traits consistently that you keep selecting for. Yet, perhaps, that is the start of how many or all long-since 'stabilized' and treasured 'favorite' heirlooms came to be. Some of the heirlooms (whether or not they are still available) may have been selectively bred before varieties were named and recorded on paper.

Can you tell I'm interested in this topic, even if I'm not 'set up' to try this myself right now?

[Gary350]

I don't completely understand plant cross pollination but I do know how Dekalb corn was grown when I worked there 50 years ago.

Corn was planted with 4 rows of type A corn then 12 rows of type B corn then another 4 rows of A then 12 rows of B over and over in the whole 100 acre field. Tassels were removed from all the B corn plants so A corn pollinated the B corn. Only the B corn was harvested for seeds. Seeds will grow AB corn.

I was told by people that worked their longer than me example, B corn could be very large 12 ft corn that grows very large ears. A corn could be resistant to killer mold that kills lots of corn. AB corn turns out to be large ear corn that is resistance to killer mold.

Peaches & cream is probably grown the same way, B corn is probably yellow corn, A corn is white corn. Seeds are AB seeds that grow yellow/white corn. Once you have yellow/white corn if AB pollinates AB you should get more AB corn year after year for a few years.

I have no clue why A is pollinated with B instead of B being pollinated with A maybe tests need to be done to see if AB corn is better than BA corn.

[greenstubbs]

I'm just a good ol' boy from Il; so I'll just take my Illini super sweet that's a nice Golden yellow, the way corn should be! It blows any other corn out the window! Good Luck

[PraticalGardener]

Were you able to try growing any bi-colored corn Gary?

[Gary350]

Were you able to try growing any bi-colored corn Gary?

YES, I switched to G90 bi color sweet corn and have learned how to get 99% germination.

I have learned super sweet corn often has poor germination about 60% vs sweet corn with 90% germination. Super sweet corn is also small corn stalks about 6 ft tall and small ears.

Sweet corn is larger than super sweet 8 ft tall plants with larger 8" long ears with about 750 kernels per ear. 300 sweet corn ears will produce 2 times more kernels than 300 super sweet corn ears.

300 sweet corn ear kernels = 600 super sweet corn ear kernels because sweet corn is larger than super sweet.

I recently learned Red color corn has 3 times more protein than sweet corn.

Google says. 1 cup of sweet corn contains 4.3 grams of protein. Corn is considered a whole grain, and it contains more protein than most vegetables. It's also high in fiber, vitamins, and minerals, and relatively low in fat and protein.

Red corn should be about 15 grams of protein. I have never grown red corn and never eaten red corn, I might need to grow some to learn if I want to eat red corn.

[applestar]

There is an OP variety called Double Red Sweet that I liked.

Note that since sweet corn is harvested at milk stage, the kernels will still be white or pink or red in the cob but not in kernels. So the nutritional profile might be lower too, compared to profile drives from flint or flour corn.