Painted Mountain Sweet/Flour Corn

[Lorri D]

Hello,

I've had lots of luck with my flour corn this year and I want to share some pics.

[PhilaGardener]

Beautiful!

[joseph]

I love Painted Mountain!

[salix]

Beautiful pictures, Lorri, thanks for sharing. I also grew a few plants of Painted Mountain this year and have recently harvested about a dozen colourful ears. My intention is to admire them for quite awhile, then grind them into meal or flour. What do you do with yours, also when and how?

Also, general question: if you were to save, say, just the solid blue kernels for planting would you get only blue ears next year or would the multicoloured ears result? I got one ear that is the most beautiful dark red and would really like to get a patch of 'just red' plants.

[Lorri D]

Originally Posted by salix

Beautiful pictures, Lorri, thanks for sharing. I also grew a few plants of Painted Mountain this year and have recently harvested about a dozen colourful ears. My intention is to admire them for quite awhile, then grind them into meal or flour. What do you do with yours, also when and how?

Also, general question: if you were to save, say, just the solid blue kernels for planting would you get only blue ears next year or would the multicoloured ears result? I got one ear that is the most beautiful dark red and would really like to get a patch of 'just red' plants.

I am not a corn expert. I think Joseph might be a better person to ask.

But, I will answer the best I can. This was the first time I grew painted mountain. I grew it, because the description stated it could be eaten as a sweet corn when young or left to dry and used as a flour corn. But, I never saw a "sweet corn" stage. Mine seemed to go straight to flour corn.

My plan was to eat most of it fresh and any we didn't get to, I would use as flour. I have an old fashioned metal crank seed and nut grinder that was owned by my husband's grandmother. I picked the ears that had completely dried husks, and I am drying it a little more in the house separated on a table.

I have heard that if you want one color that you would pick out all of the one color and you should get full ears of that color the next year. Just what I heard, I've not done it. I like the rainbow effect, so I will try to save equal numbers of the colors for seed next time. I hope that helps a little.

[Darren Abbey]

Originally Posted by salix

Also, general question: if you were to save, say, just the solid blue kernels for planting would you get only blue ears next year or would the multicoloured ears result? I got one ear that is the most beautiful dark red and would really like to get a patch of 'just red' plants.

It would depend on exactly what genetics is responsible for the color, but in general I'd give it a firm maybe.

What you'll be doing is selecting for the genes that produced the color you liked. If the trait is due to recessive alleles, then your new plants will be full of those colors alone. If the trait is due to dominant alleles, then your new plants will have mostly those colors but with some other colors too. Either way, I say go for it.

[Salsacharley]

The corn with the striped kernels in the third picture down is truly amazing. What a CORNucopia of beauty in all the pics!

I'm wondering if Glass Gem corn is related to this corn...?

[joseph]

Glass Gem came out of the deep south. Painted Mountain came out of the far north. Painted Mountain is an extremely short season corn. Glass Gem is a very long season corn. Painted Mountain is midget corn. Glass Gem is giant. Glass Gem is a flint corn. Painted Mountain is a flour. I'd guess that it's been a long time since they shared a common ancestor.

[salix]

Thank you Lorri and Darren - That is exactly what I was going to do, keep the colours separately and plant a different colour each year. As I like to say "it's all an experiment". Will post my results here, if that is alright with you, Lorri.

I also planted a few hybrid "Caramel Crisp" corn this year. They are the type of popcorn that blooms out into a mushroom shape as opposed to the usual starry popcorn. We have enjoyed a remarkable growing season and I have high hopes that these will actually mature. The plants are very tall and extremely sturdy and healthy with large ears which are actually filling in very nicely. Keeping fingers crossed.

[habitat_gardener]

I recalled reading about Carol Deppe's culinary corn experiments in The Resilient Gardener, and sure enough, she grew enough Painted Mountain to be able to cook with each color separately, then selected for her favorites and developed Magic Manna corn. Fascinating story...p. 277 to 279.

[dustdevil]

Originally Posted by salix

Also, general question: if you were to save, say, just the solid blue kernels for planting would you get only blue ears next year or would the multicoloured ears result? I got one ear that is the most beautiful dark red and would really like to get a patch of 'just red' plants.

You need to grow out only the blue kernels year-after-year until you get only/mostly blue kernels. If your beautiful dark red variety is already stabilized, then you're already set. I will warn you that starting from scratch, this can take some time. There are some red and some blue flour varieties out there that have been stabilized over hundreds(some over a thousand of years!) by Native Americans, Mexicans, Peruvians, etc. Painted Mountain started as a cross of some of these colorful native varieties...many years in the making!

[dustdevil]

Lorri, you had a great harvest! Nice pics also.

[Worth1]

The Indians in Mexico have been carefully selecting for hundreds of years to keep their races of corn.
I cant think of anything more pretty in nature than this type of corn.
It is like the peacock of the plant kingdom.

Worth

[Lorri D]

I've got them separated into about 6 piles. Stripes, blues, greens, reds, pastels, and metallics. I am going to keep about two cups of each pile for replanting and use the rest. I love it. I am not sure if I will be able to plant a large patch of it next year, but I think I will have to at least plant a small corn patch just for my personal enjoyment. I like the mixed effect, so I'm going to plant them mixed together. I hope to get the same results or maybe I will get lucky and find something even prettier.

I came across a ton that were candy striped red and white. I should have kept them separate and tried to stabilize it. I could have had candy cane corn.

I came across a lot of blue and reds that also had white feathered into it. I could have had a stars n stripes version too. But, there is no way to go back now and pick them out now. lol

[Worth1]

If you want to get just one color you will have to only plant that one color and segregate it form any other corn.

Every one of those silks that come out of the ear represent a kernel of corn.
They need at least one pollen grain on each silk for the kernel to develop.

You mentioned the corn went straight to flour corn.
At what stage of the silk did you check the corn?
With this type of corn a day can make all the deference in the world.

Worth