If you're going to grow corn-on-the-cob corn and Indian corn you need to plant them at least 30 meters apart or they will cross and your sweet corn will have more starch and not be as sweet. Just for fun, I planted one single red kernel of corn amongst a block of Peaches 'n Creme corn. It was very interesting to see the odd red kernal popping up in the P 'n C corn in a 1 meter radius that spread around the one native corn plant. I'm going to plant the offspring next year to see what I get.
I'm surprised you can even grow corn up Edmonton way.
See, it's times like this that I'm so incredibly happy I joined steemit!!! I would have foolishly planted them all right together! LoL
Thank you SO much for the tip!
Corn grows quite well up here actually, it's all prairies, so we mainly grow canola and alfalfa up here but about an hour or two south it's nearly all wheat and corn, corn does a bit better down there but they still can do really well up this far as well :)
I love growing corn. For awhile I had some supposedly Nez Perce ancestral corn. The Nez Perce (Nimíipuu) are in Idaho, so I thought it would be a good short season corn. It grew really well around the 32nd parallel, but above the 49th it didn't mature before the first frost (mid September). I still have some seed, I think, but corn seed only keeps a couple of years before it dies.
I once smuggled some corn seed back from Ecuador. No day length variations at the eqauator. At the 32nd parallel it grew incredibly tall. How tall, you may ask? One stalk was 22 feet from root to tassle top! Didn't produce much corn, though.
I even encountered corn on a hike through the jungle in the Mexican state of Chiapas. It was along the Agua Azul river. These are the lands of the Lacandon people (Maya). Corn originated not far from here. Walking through the crop was like being in a forest. I had to reach up to touch the lowest ears on the stalks. It was magical.
Wow!!! That is truly incredible!!!
22 feet!! Amazing! I can't even really picture it! LoL
Your travels sounds really cool, I'm a bit of a homebody but I love learning about the flora and fauna around the world, it never occurred to me that corn would still be growing wild in parts :)
So awesome!
Not wild. Corn is one of this plants that would go extinct if people didn't plant it. It's been cultivated for 10,000 years. These were different varieties under cultivation.
I told a friend about my tall corn and he didn't believe me, so I invited him over, we pulled it up and we measured it. He still had a hard time believing it. Beautiful kernels: deep yellow with red stripes.
Ah, that makes more sense to me! LoL
What variety was that tall guy?
I'm planning what kinds I'm going to plant for next year and so far I've got; pink popcorn, painted mountain again, some type of sweet corn and I'd love to find a type of inca corn with the huge kernels to make into toasted corn :) I'm not sure I've got enough space to keep them apart though now! Haha
No idea what variety. I was waking down a dirt road outside of Quito. Some workers were harvesting corn, shucking it and throwing it in a pile. It was beautiful. I paid a guy a quarter for an ear. He must have thought I was nuts. You could buy a dozen long-stemmed roses for a dollar at the time.
Seed saver's exchange might have what you're looking for. Good luck.
I really appreciate the info!!!! West coast seeds sells a few popcorn and lots of sweet corn, finding inca may be another story LoL
Seed Savers has lots of private contributors. I found a rare strawberry variety that way. Your Inca corn is probably there. And if that doesn't work, when it's 40 below in Edmonton, you might want to take a nice Summer vacation to Lima. Post your adventure on Steemit and pay for the trip!