Cross pollination of corn

[El Presidente Hillbillios]

Hey all,

I was reading somewhere that blue corn will not cross pollinate with yellow corn.. Damned if i can find where i was reading it now though. Has anyone heard the same thing? It seemed kinda unlikely at the time, thats how it stuck in my head. But maybe its true. Would be kinda nice to be able to grow them together

[poisonshroom]

I dont see why they wouldnt. Arent they the same species? I was under the impression that blue corn is just a less domesticated variety or something, but im no expert on corn and Iv never grown the blue variety/species

[rahli]

I have just finished growing a batch of corn. From what I have read you aren't supposed to cross pollinate different vars as you end up with bland tasting corn that doesn't form well. You must also plant it in blocks so that it can pollinate properly otherwise you'll get a heap of kernels not forming. Next year I want to grow popcorn which is derived from the old vars like the blue corn. Should be fun and the kids will love it.

[Gunter]

i crossed a white dent flour corn with an anasazi blue corn used for cornmeal and it was great, i selected the best ears and grew out a few generations

i could see how sugar/sweet corn would not mix well with but corn used for flour and meal seems fine for crossing

i don't much like sweet corn, but i love parched corn

Edited October 2, 2011 by Gunter

[random]

Hmmm all my reading so far has stated that you can only grow one variety of corn at a time... depending on how much space/land you have obviously.

But considering wind can cross pollinate corn it may be a good idea to keep one type at a time if you want to save seed.

If you have no intentions of saving seed, I see zero issue with planting more than one variety at a time.

p.s you are the corn-lord

[incognito]

im kinda worried about that to. i want my corn strains to remain pure. so growing different vars they surely will cross pollinate, and prodginy will not be a true to type?

will the same happen with pumpkins?

[random]

Yes, same with pumpkins as far as I'm aware, but I'm growing two different heirloom types anyway as I can't help myself LOL

[Torsten]

we often grow more than one heirloom strain, but you need to make sure that the fruit you keep for seed was pollinated when only one type of pollen was available. This applies to most things you grow in the vege garden. growing several strains without saving genetically clean seed just homogenises everything and then you can't hybridise for vigour.

[El Presidente Hillbillios]

ah yeah so, maybe just stagger growing times so they aint pollinating at the same time. Thats all i need to do?

[tripsis]

Or keep sufficient distance between each variety. Corn is wind pollinated, so they need to be planted together to be effectively pollinated.

Edited October 6, 2011 by tripsis

[Torsten]

when you try to keep strains pure then distance is rarely a suitable method in a normal garden. as you say, a very close distance is required for good pollination of many things, but even a long distance can cause partial pollination. It doesn't take much pollination to ruin your strain.

Staggering maturity or removing flowers [or just male parts] is a good way to manage pollen in a garden situation. eg, you might grow an early maturing corn first, then once the first ears are fully pollinated cut off the male flowers before the next corn type gets to exposing its silk.

as for the OP, I hav crossed many varieties of corn and while the results vary greatly in quality, I can't see any genetic impediment to such crosses.