In article ,
Jie-san Laushi wrote:
It's an impressive
accomplishment of indigenous agriculture to adapt a plant native to
hot dry climates to a cold short season maritime one.

Does GRIN have this one? We could sure use it in the Maritime Northwest. (I
know, a flint corn is not like a sweet corn, but it's a start!)

I got my initial seeds from teh USDA Maize Germplasm Repository before it
closed. THey sent me a dozen or so seeds from three inbred lines and I
interplanted them to get as much diversity as I was going to get. I've
distributed seed through Seeds of Diversity (Heritage Seed Program), a
Canadian organization similar to the Seed Savers Exchange in the US.
People up here who live well out of the grain corn areas have had good
results - places like the Saguenay Valley in Quebec during a very cold
rainy season and one guy north of Edmonton, Alberta got a good crop
despite a short growing season. It's not productive as a modern hybrid,
but these people live in areas where most maize can't mature seed.

If you are looking for a short season or cool climate sweet corn, there's
been a lot of work done in Canada and the northern US. Stokes Seeds used
to do a lot of sweet corn breeding, and there are several small seed
companies up here that specialize in short season cultivars. Two that
specialize in the Maritime NW are Salt Spring Seeds (BC) and Territorial
Seeds (BC and WA). There's also Johnny's Selected Seeds and Pinetree
Seeds in Maine. One company I really like is Prairie Garden Seeds
in northern Saskatchewan (www.prseeds.ca). Among many other unusual and
short season cultivars, he has Simonet sweet corn, which was developed
in northern Alberta.