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livingontheland - [Livingontheland] polypropylene for seed saving?

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Subject: Healthy soil and sustainable growing

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Chronological Thread  
  • From: "Michelle Kuhns" <MKuhns@communityfoodbank.com>
  • To: <livingontheland@lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: [Livingontheland] polypropylene for seed saving?
  • Date: Mon, 03 Apr 2006 12:19:37 -0700

My understanding is that most varieties of corn produce pollen for a
12-20 day span. Is is possible for you to stagger your plantings of
each variety by two weeks and thus have only one type of pollen blowing
around at a time?

Michelle

>>> Steve Diver <steved@ipa.net> 3/31/2006 7:02 PM >>>
Carrie, thanks for clarifying.

I sure missed that background.

I think it would be darned near impossible to encase
a corn crop in floating row cover, just by letting
it "ride" and "float" on top of the corn.

Floating row cover can be applied to early planted
sweet corn to protect from frost and promote a warm
growing environment and encourage early yields.

It is normally removed after a crop of sweet corn is
about one foot in height.

But, if you are totally into seed saving and willing
to go the extra mile..... you could indeed build a
rectangular structure that is 10' to 12' high, and
grow the corn within a pollen-excluding tunnel
covered with floating row cover, if expense is
not an issue.

There is a technique for growing seedless
cucumbers inside a screen house to keep bees
out, and those kinds of structures would double
for a pollen-free tunnel.

Q. Do you know Carl Barnes with CORNS, Inc. in
Western Okla., since you're involved with seed
saving.

Steve Diver
NW Arkansas



-----Original Message-----
>From: Carrie Shepard <carrieshepard@yahoo.com>
>Sent: Mar 31, 2006 5:09 PM
>To: Steve Diver <steved@ipa.net>, Healthy soil and sustainable growing
<livingontheland@lists.ibiblio.org>
>Subject: Re: [Livingontheland] polypropylene for seed saving?
>
>Thanks for the extra advice Steve,
>
>
>In a previous post I was asking for advice on seedsaving because I
want to try to grow enough of 3 different types of corn to save seeds
(Hopi blue dent, strawberry popcorn, and a golden bantam) and was
reading the advice in Seed to Seed about bagging the tassels and ears in
order to manage the pollination and prevent cross pollination.
>
> I'm talking about the light weight polypropylene row covering that
comes in various widths and lengths and is light enough to cover the
whole wide bed of corn for the whole season. It lets light and moisture
through, and so our question becomes, Can I use row covering to protect
the corn from crossing with other varieties instead of bagging so many
ears?
>
> Carrie
> in NE OK









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