"Janet Baraclough" wrote in message
from "Farm1" please@askifyouwannaknow contains these words:

I must be missing something here but I understood that the
question
orignally asked was about growing corn which, as specified in the
subject line, was non-hybrid??????

Yebbut, sweetcorn (to eat on the cob), not maize corn (to kibble,
or
grind flour).

All corn/maize can be eaten if it is young enough. The problem with
most corns is that they are often eaten too old.

The problem for Alan is in getting any old enough variety of
corn/maize that will come true from saved seed (and there is another
but I'll mention it later). If he's still interested (and he's
probably been scarred off by now :-)) then he would be best to look
for heritage varieties in the US where there is a very active seed
savers groups and I know that heritage corn is one of the things that
they've been saving..

I've been back to the earlier posts and also to google groups and
I
still have the same understanding - non-hybrid was defintitely
what
was specificied by Alan Holmes

Yes

I know you've grown sweetcorn successfully but you wrote of
growing a
short summer hybrid variety which wasn't what Alan asked about.


However, having said that, the Anasazi and Bali sweet corns which
I
mentioned and gave a site for, are both ones which would fit the
bill
for being as close to non-hybrid as it's probably possible to get
these days. And, as both come from much hotter climes than those
of
the UK then I think that it would need the sort of heat such as
found
in either a greenhouse or tunnel house.

BTW, the Anasazi corn only has a one that has a 81-90 day maturity
rate http://davesgarden.com/pf/go/49737/index.html . Both
vaieties I
mentioned come from more basic societies where seedsaving is still
(or
was at the time seedsaving societies arrived on the scene) common.

Well, the only one I've seen for sale here is the Anasazi; sold
here
as an "ornamental" corn. AFAIK, other than the colourful looks,
that's
because it's a hard kernel, like maize, and its heritage past was a
grinding-corn to make flour/porridge (which I can't see Alan H
doing
:-) . So, I'm surprised to see the Aus site suggests it for eating
fresh.

It only becomes an "ornamental" corn when it's very mature. Like all
corn, when it's young and milky, it can still be eaten. Sweetcorn
seed when fully mature/dried is much more shrivelled that the other
varieties of corn, the dent, flint, flour and pop corns. It can be
eaten when at the milky yellow stage (and I think the site I gave
mentioned that but I'm feeling too idle at the moment to go back to
check).

Can't find anything about the Bali corn, do you know if it was a
grinding/flour one?

Haven't a clue.

Stock-feed (hard) maize is farmed as an agricultural crop in
England
btw, but you'd have to be truly desperate to eat it; it;s tough and
the
starches don't turn to sugar in the same way as (ripe) sweetcorn.

The stuff we know now as sweetcorn is a relatively new beastie in the
corn world. The sweetcorn of even a hundred years ago was far less
"sweet" so even if Alan finds a true from seed variety of heritage
corn, he may not think it's up to much because it won't be like modern
day sweetcorn.