Glass Gem corn

This year I grew the famous "Glass Gem Corn".  I am not sure how or when glass gem corn made its way to Australia, but there are a few people growing and selling it here now.

To prevent cross-pollination I only grew glass gem corn this year, and no other varieties of corn.  I am not sure if any of my neighbours grew any type of corn, but I doubt it.

Glass Gem corn is not a sweet corn, it is not a GM corn, it is not the same as the 'glass bead' corn that I used to grow.  Glass gem corn can be used to grind for flour, or to feed livestock, and it makes a reasonable pop corn if allowed to ripen and dry properly.  Above all else, glass gem corn is incredibly beautiful.

I have heard so much about glass gem corn that I figured this year I would grow it and see what I think.  I planted similar coloured seeds close together, this means some cobs were largely one colour, and other cobs were filled with mixed colours.  

To be honest I am not sure what I prefer, mixed colours are pretty, and so are cobs of largely one type of colour.

Some cobs of Glass Gem corn have mixed colours.  I like the look of these mixed glass gem cobs.

Glass Gem Corn

Glass Gem corn - mixed colours

Some cobs of Glass gem corn are mostly pink.  My daughters love the pink glass gem corn.

Glass Gem corn - pink

Some cobs of Glass Gem corn are mostly blues.  

Glass Gem corn - blue

Some glass gem corn cobs are mostly pale colours:

Some glass gem corn cobs have darker colours:

Glass Gem Corn

Glass Gem Corn

I was told that glass gem corn plants will produce up to 15 cobs per plant if given enough space, and far less cobs if planted closer.  Some online seed sellers claim they reliably produce 2 to 3 cobs per plant.

For me, under reasonably cramped conditions they produced anywhere from 1 to 10 cobs per plant.  Some plants tiller lots, some didn't tiller at all.  Some produced one or two decent cobs and a bunch of poorly filled out ones (presumably an issue with pollination from being planted too close), others produced a lot of cobs that were all completely filled out, and other plants produced one single cob.

I counted up all the cobs and averaged 4.5 cobs per plant.  This average includes cobs were poorly pollinated and did not have many seeds.

Glass gem corn tillering - this plant produced 10 cobs

Glass gem corn, I grow beans up the stalks and a ground cover of purslane

I am told glass gem corn grow up to 3 metres tall or more, most of mine were about half that size.  The glass gem corn plants averaged 1.5 to 1.8 metres tall for me, with a few shorter plants in the mix.  I have grown some really tall corn in the past, but this variety did not look anything like them.  I honestly doubt it could get very tall regardless of the space it is given or fertility of the soil.  This is good, shorter corn is better in small gardens.

The cobs themselves weren't overly long, for me they came in about 15 cm long, some a little longer and others slightly shorter.  Not a bad size cob for popcorn.

Glass Gem Corn cobs 15cm long

I like glass gem corn, and my daughters seem to love the pink popcorn even though it still pops white just like the store bought yellow stuff.  

I particularly like all of the different colours and shades glass gem corn comes in.

Glass Gem Corn comes in a myriad of colours

 

When saving the seed I will keep some of the colours separate and sell seeds from cobs that were mostly pink, or mostly blue, or mixed cobs.  While the pinks don't produce 100% pink cobs, they all carry pink genetics and unless pollinated by stray pollen they will mostly be pink similar to the cob in the photo.  Who knows, perhaps your daughter will want to grow pink popcorn too!

I think I will try to grow glass gem corn again, I like it.  As far as popcorn goes it is very pretty, and the yield seems pretty good.  I will probably also sell seeds through my for sale page.