"Mike Lyle" wrote in message
Farm1 wrote:
"Mike Lyle" wrote in message
Alan Holmes wrote:
"K" wrote in message
...
[...]
Why do you want non-hybrid sweetcorn?

So I can save the seed and get the same variety for the next
year!

I don't think it would work; as I mentioned before, I think all
sweet
corn, like all our cereals, is the product of hybridisation.

I don't think this is universally right Mike. I know that some of
the
old forms of sweet corn can still be bought (at least in Oz) but I
don't know how they'd go in a cooler UK growing season (although
given
that many UK gardeners seem to have access to tunnel houses etc,
then
that should help it grow. The firm mentioned below has a range of
corn including Bali and Anasasi corn
http://www.edenseeds.com.au/content/main.html

When I said "hybridisation", I didn't mean recently: as far as I
knew,
the recognisable ancestor arose in prehistoric times, and there
wasn't
a true species in the wild.

OK, with you now and I agree with you in terms of anciently occurring
hybridisation. However, in terms of the OPs question, I do think that
it must still be possible for him/her to get sweet corn plants which
will come true from seed even if he'/she has to source the seed
outside of the UK. The one's for which I gave the cite are from
societies which had to have plants that bred true from seed.

In the absence of our botanist, Stewart
Robert Hinsley, I've Ggld up a scientific article, which shows I'm
wrong, but partly right!

http://sciencecareerst.sciencemag.or.../previous_issu
es/articles/3290/ancestors_of_science_prehistoric_gm_corn
or
http://tinyurl.com/trxog

It's very interesting if you like that kind of thing:

The articles were interesting but I must admit to a certain degree of
eye glazing as I read them :-))

In any case, the big objection to the plan is Nick's, reinforced by
you: the virtual impossibility of ripening seed in the British
climate.

I didn't mean it to sound like it wasn't possible to produce corn in
Britain that wouldn't be vialbe (given the right parent plant). I
thought rather the reverse. Given the talents of Brit gardeners and
the resource of a decent sized tunnel or green house then I though
that it should be possible. It'd probably require growing the corn in
a block and hand pollinating by shaking the silks together but the
heat provided by the housing should be enough if it was a sunny as
opposed to an overcast summer.