Perennial corn survived winter

Last summer I grew some perennial corn Zea diploperennis.  I am very excited to say that some of my perennial corn plants survived winter and now that the weather is warming are happily growing!  

Zea diploperennis is a perennial undomesticated ancestor of our modern corn.  I am not sure if this particular species was used in breeding modern corn, or if it is just closely related to the species that were used in breeding domestic corn.  What I do know is that it crosses with modern corn and with various undomesticated teosinte corn species.  

My understanding is that perennial corn is pretty uncommon, and it is incredibly rare in Australia.  I had never grown, or even seen, perennial corn plants before so this was somewhat of an adventure and a learning curve.

The cobs from diploperennis were small and contain far fewer seeds than domestic corn.  I don't know if first year cobs are smaller than subsequent year cobs, but have a feeling that they are never large and never contain huge amounts of seed.  

All modern corn varieties are annual which is great for large scale chemical dependent monocropping.  A perennial corn would be wonderful for home growers, permaculture farming, and low input polyculture food forests.  Perennial corn plants are simple to grow and resistant to may pests and diseases that affect modern corn, which makes them useful in breeding something that is better suited to backyard growers who don't want to spray anything.  

I am told that this corn contains roughly 85% diploperennis genetics and about 15% domestic corn genetics.  Having a small percentage of domestic corn genetics should mean that this will flower around the same time as other corn varieties, making it easier to cross breed and produce a perennial popcorn or perennial dent corn.

Z diploperennis divided into two plants - red stems

I'm not sure how perennial corn would grow in a warmer climate, but where I am it dies back to rhizomes over winter.  Some plants have robust rhizomes that appear to have divided a lot, while others had weaker rhizomes that did not divide at all.

Perennial corn is not well suited to my climate, the frosts are just too harsh here.  It would be well suited to conditions with milder winters.  I was uncertain if it could survive winter here but I did not want to grow it from seed each year and have yet another perennial vegetable that I treat as an annual.

To give it the best chance of surviving I grew it in pots which I moved to an unheated greenhouse over winter.  This meant that it was still very cold, but the soil would not freeze.  I learned a lot from this, and by in large it was successful.  I believe that this would probably survive in the field if it was mulched.

Zea diploperennis divided into two - green stems

Some plants did not survive the winter.  These were no great loss, they were not cold tolerant and did not contain the genes required to build a perennial corn landrace that could stand up in my climate.  

A few plants survived and started to sprout in spring, then were eaten by slaters and the plant died.  This is regrettable as the plants were good and would probably survive in the field if mulched well.  They clearly had some of the required genetics and their loss represents a loss of diversity that may have been useful in some other genetic combination.  They did not divide enough, which meant that they only had one growing point and they died once this had been eaten by pests. 

Some plants divided a little, as can be seen in the above pictures they had two growing points that had not been killed by pests.  As can be seen above there is considerable diversity among these survivors.  Some have green stems, others have more red on the stems.  This diversity carries over the the colour of the seeds and cobs and is likely present in all of their genetics.  

Perennial corn flowering 

Genetic diversity is great as it means we should be able to cross things and hopefully end up with the right combination of genetics.  One of my plants started to flower as it was breaking dormancy.  We will see if anything comes of that flower and if that plant is worth keeping.

You may be able to tell in the photos, but I did not remove the previous year growth.  This was partly because the leaves stayed green and alive for much of winter, and partly because I thought they would help protect the growing points slightly.  Now that they are actively growing again it is time to remove the old growth.

Zea diploperennis dividing into many plants

One of my plants divided into several plants, I am not sure how many but it is a decent number.  This plant also had several stalks in its first year, and was the only of my plants to do this.  This is a trait that I want to keep when I try to breed perennial popcorn.  

I certainly don't want to reduce genetic diversity in the population at this stage so will not be only breeding from this dividing plant.  Given that it does produce multiple stems I assume it will produce a lot of pollen and will likely incorporate its genes into a lot of the seeds produced by my plants.

From careful poking around in the soil it appears that this plant produced several rhizomes which probably could have been split off from one another and transplanted.  These second year plants are certainly larger than seed grown at this stage, (especially considering that I have not yet planted corn seed for the year) so it will be interesting to see if they are more productive than first year plants.

Even if I never successfully cross this with modern corn this vigorously dividing trait would still be useful and highly desirable.  Even if I simply breed a population of dividing plants they can be used similar to other cereals such as wheat o oats, but with much larger seeds that are more nutritious and are far simpler to thresh at home.

Zea diploperennis cob

I have not divided anything yet as I have so few plants to play with and would hate to accidentally kill one.  Instead I am leaving all of these surviving plants as they are to see how they perform in their second year and hopefully produce far more cobs per plant.  

As you can see in the photo, the first year cobs were tiny.  I have a feeling that they could double or triple this size.  In other words I think that they will always be really small unless it is crossed with domestic corn.

Zea diploperennis cob size

I wonder if a clumping plant like this would be more productive or less work than a plant with a single stem as it may produce numerous little cobs.  It would be nice to be able to plant a perennial corn rhizome and then leave it to form an expanding clump that was increasingly productive each year.  The only way for me to find out if this is possible is for me to leave it and see what happens.

This year I don't have any spare plants or seed to share.  Hopefully all goes well and in autumn I will have spare seed and hopefully even some rhizome divisions from my more vigorous plants.  

If you are in Australia and interested in growing perennial corn feel free to get in touch with me around autumn/winter to see if I have any seeds to spare.  You can either leave a comment below or my contact details can be found on my for sale page.   

Heirloom Russian Tomato Varieties

I grow a lot of different varieties of tomatoes.  Some are very old heirloom tomato varieties, while others I am developing myself.  

Some of the tomatoes I grew 

Some of my favourite tasting tomato varieties are old Russian heirloom varieties.  As a generalisation, Russian tomatoes have been bred for rich tastes and high productivity.  There are very few heirloom tomatoes in Australia that can rival the flavour of the old Russian varieties.  

I always used to be under the impression that Russian varieties would be quick to ripen and not mind the cold (unless there is frost) and perform well with short days with only weak sunlight.  From what I understand now, that is not always the case as many Russian tomato varieties were developed for greenhouse culture.  That is ok as they make up for any short comings in having a deep and often complex tomato taste that is hard to beat.  

Unfortunately I have not grown very many heirloom Russian tomato varieties.  I would like to grow a few more of them as their taste is often superb.  Some of the Russian tomatoes I have grown are listed below.

I like tomato season 

Japanese Black Trifele - Yaponskiy Trufel Chernyyi   Японский трюфель

Tomato - Japanese Black Trifele

Japanese Black Trifele is a great Russian heirloom tomato and one of the few varieties that I will grow each and every year.  They produce mahogany brown, pear shaped fruit, that is often green on the shoulders.  The size and shape of the fruits varies a little even on the same truss.  Apparently it was named 'Japanese' to make it sound more exotic, but was developed in Russia and it is a commercially produced tomato in Russia.  These produce a large yield for me every year under different conditions, and they taste incredible.  They are great raw or cooked.  This plant has potato leaf and is indeterminate.

Malakhitovaya Shkatulka - Malachite Box - Малахитовая Шкатулка

Tomato - Malakhitovaya Shkatulka

Tomato - Malakhitovaya Shkatulka

Malakhitovaya Shkatulka is another great Russian tomato.  The size and shape of the fruit lend it to slicing for sandwiches, and it goes well in a salad.  Everyone who tastes this has loved it.  It is difficult to tell when they are ripe from a distance, but you are close enough to touch them it becomes pretty simple.  They tend to have small yield in my garden, I wish that it was higher yielding as they taste so great.  It is often said that Russia does not produce green when ripe tomatoes, often when being sold in Russia it is listed as having yellow skin.  I don't care how you describe it or what colour you want to call it, this variety tastes great.

Giant Siberian Pink - Sibirskiy Velikan Rozovyi - Сибирский Великан Розовый

Tomato - Giant Siberian Pink

Giant Siberian Pink is a good tasting Russian tomato that produces very large, mostly round, pinkish fruits.  This variety produces firm flesh, and has a decent number of seeds which makes seed saving easy.  This plant produced a medium to large yield (medium number of fruit, super large sized fruit) over the season.  Being a large fruited tomato it does not ripen early in my garden.  

Little Oak Like - malenʹkiy dub, kak   маленький дуб, как 

Tomato - Little Oak Like

Little Oak Like is a great tasting heirloom Russian tomato that is far too rare.  It is only a small plant, maybe a foot tall and wide.  The red round tomatoes have green shoulders and taste great.  Little Oak Like tomatoes have the deep, rich, old fashioned tomato taste that people think of when they think of home grown tomatoes.  This is one of the best tasting red tomatoes I have eaten.  This plant has a large yield over a reasonably long season for a short determinate tomato.  It is usually among the first tomatoes to ripen in my garden.  The fruit are a little small, but more than make up for that by tasting great.

Black Russian - Chernyy Russkiy - черный русский

Tomato - Black Russian

Tomato - Black Russian

Black Russian is probably the most famous variety of heirloom tomato in Australia even though it is one of the worst.  Black Russian tomato is by far the worst Russian tomato I have ever grown!  Crops are small, the fruit cracks often, and it lack any real depth of flavour that you expect from home grown tomatoes.  If you disagree with this I dare say you are either comparing it to the ethylene ripened cold stored garbage from the shops, or with other home grown insipid varieties such as 'Roma'.  Let's face it, a home grown Roma will always taste bland compared to a home grown flavoursome variety.  The colour of the black Russian tomato fruit is amazing inside and out, and they are a good size, unfortunately the taste, yield, and time it takes to mature always let it down severely in my garden.

Various tomatoes I grow

I often sell seeds saved from my open pollinated organically grown plants through my for sale page.  If you are interested please have a look.  

If you are Russian or have a Slavic background, and know about some other traditional vegetable varieties I would love to hear from you.  I would be interested to grow some more Russian vegetable varieties, not just tomatoes but other vegetables as well.  I would love to grow an old Russian beetroot variety but seem unable to find the names of any.  

If you grow some other Russian tomato or other Russian vegetable varieties and would like to swap some seeds or sell me some seeds please also let me know.  Either leave a comment on this blog post or my email address can be found on my for sale page.  

Purple asparagus spears

I grow a few different varieties of asparagus, most I grew from seed.  Asparagus is a perennial vegetable that can produce for decades.

By far my favourite tasting asparagus variety is an old heirloom variety called Precoce D'Argentuil.  It has spears that are mostly green with a little bit of purple.  It is a large vigorous variety, which is great for home gardeners.  It is far better than anything you will ever buy from the markets.

I also like purple asparagus.  It is often sweeter than the green varieties.  For me they usually produce fat and high quality spears.  I do find purple asparagus to be less productive than the green varieties, so it is a bit of a trade off.  I grow several varieties of green and purple asparagus, so get to eat the ones I like best.

Below are some photos of my purple asparagus.  I have put a green spear next to them for comparison.

Purple asparagus next to a green one for comparison

The spears do get much deeper purple colour than this, but I didn't pick them until a bit late so they started to get a bit long and get a bit more green.  As purple asparagus spears open out they turn green just like any other variety.

I normally stop picking when they spears get a bit thin so the plant can gather energy for the next year.  Some years I keep picking a bit too long.  The spears in these phots are a bit thinner than I would normally pick, but as long as I don't pick this hard the following year the plants don't seem to mind.

You can also blanch the spears and force purple asparagus to produce white spears.  This is very tender, and not hard to do.

Purple asparagus 

Purple asparagus spears

I have a few different purple asparagus plants.  Some are male, others are female.  I prefer female plants as the spears are fatter, better quality, and the plants more productive.  Male plants are good too as they do not produce berries and you don't have to remove seedlings to prevent them from crowding the bed.  As my plants are seed grown I just have a mix of both male and female, for most home gardeners this is not an issue.  

I do sometimes sell asparagus crowns of different heirloom varieties.  I normally sell dormant crowns of one or two year old plants late winter or early spring.  I do not know which are male and which are female.  I tried to tag them while they were in flower but by the time they are dormant I tend to lose track of which is which.  When I do have them for sale they are listed on my for sale page.

Vietnamese coriander flowering

Vietnamese coriander (Persicaria odorata) is an edible perennial herb from south east Asia.  I wrote an earlier post with Vietnamese coriander growing notes.  This is a very simple to grow, productive, and great tasting edible herb.  This is not related to coriander in any way, but can often be used in a similar way.

Vietnamese coriander loves heat, humidity, water, yet strangely does not appear to like full sun all day (although this may just be in my climate where humidity is too low).  For me leaf production is best when it gets part shade.  This is easy to provide by growing it next to something taller.  

I often grow it in a container with no drainage holes, I have soil or leaf litter in the bottom, and a few cm of water on top of the soil.  I have grown it in a pot of soil, where it does well.  I have also seen people grow this in their vegetable garden.

I have always been told that this plant will not flower outside the tropics, but that is not true.

I first got Vietnamese coriander when I lived in semi-arid central west NSW, and it flowered there.  Now that I live near Canberra with its hot dry summers and cold winters (cold by Australian standards) it still flowers.  Most years I don't get many flowers from this plant.

This past year the weather was odd, it was mild and wet all summer.  My Vietnamese coriander flowered more than it ever has before!

Vietnamese coriander flowers

The flowers appear at the end of the growing stalks.  Many flowers are on each stem, they open sequentially from the base up to the tip.  The flowers don't really smell, or if they do I could not smell them over the foliage.  Flowers last a few days before dropping off.

Unlike many other herbs, the leaves do not appear to turn bitter or have any off flavours when flowering.  I haven't tried eating the flowers so don't know what they taste like.

Vietnamese coriander flowering

I have never seen any seed set.  I m not sure if it needs another clone to be able to cross pollinate, or if it in unable to set seed, or if my climate is all wrong for seed production, or if we do not have the right pollinators, or if there is some other issue at play.

I have had this plant for many years now, it grows so easily from cuttings.  Vietnamese coriander always grows prolifically for me, and produces many large leaves.  As such I don't need any true seed to be formed.

For me these grow best in spring, summer, and autumn.  My plants don't love frost, and growth slows during cold weather.  

I am growing some outside where it gets lighter frosts, these plants have reddish leaves over winter that are small, bitter, and not really worth eating until the warmer weather returns.  Once the weather warms they grow greener leaves that have no bitterness.

I grow some in my unheated greenhouse, the leaves of these are green and lush all winter and all year.   At this time of year they lose the arrow shaped markings on their leaves as the sun is not strong enough.  That doesn't bother me, they still taste great.

I also have some growing outside in my goldfish barrelponics, this is lush productive all year long.  The ones in the barrelponics has by far the most explosive growth and is not even slightly bothered by winter as the barrel water must keep it slightly warmer.  Over summer it can suffer slightly from direct sun, but there is always some that gets enough shade that it is still fast growing and great to eat.  Between this and water cress the goldfish water stays clear and clean.

If you don't grow Vietnamese coriander you should.  Sometimes plant nurseries carry them, but it seems to be a bit hit and miss.  I also sell organically grown plants of these through my for sale page.  

Black Nebula Purple Carrots

I have never been overly good at growing carrots (Daucus carota sativus).  For me they always take a long time to produce decent sized roots, they take up a lot of room for the small crop I normally get, and I am not all that fond of them.  I don't really like raw carrots, but I do like them roasted. 

Years ago I grew mixed colours of carrots.  I liked the yellow ones and found them to be sweeter than orange.  I found white to be bland.  There were some purple skinned ones with orange cores, they were a little more spicey and also quite nice.  

Black nebula carrots

Organic Black Nebula Carrots

I considered trying to breed carrots that were purple the whole way through.  I started this project but didn't make much headway due to competing priorities.

This year I grew "Black Nebula Carrots".  I had read about these and seen a few pictures, but nothing compared to what these beauties did in my garden.  These carrots were purple from the skin right to the core.  

These carrots are the darkest of the dark.  They are so dark I would almost call them black.  They really are incredible to see.

Black Nebula Carrot can have a slightly white core

Purple carrots staining the cutting board

The intense purple colour of black nebula carrots comes from anthocyanins.  Anthocyanins are powerful antioxidants that are found in things like blackberries and blueberries.  Given how dark these carrots are, they extremely rich in antioxidants and are incredibly healthy to eat, far healthier than regular orange carrots.  If you are growing food at home, you may as well grow something that is healthier than you can get from the markets!

All of the carrots I grew have some amount of white, I believe this is largely influenced by environmental factors.  Other than a small amount of white they have dark purple skin and flesh.  The leaves are green and usually have purple leaf stalks.

I found mine did not produce overly long roots, but that may have been the growing conditions.   I won't ever give them perfect growing conditions, so I assume this is how they will always grow for me.  The roots were fat at the top and got skinny pretty quickly lower down.  

The tap root had a lot of tiny side roots, making them appear a little hairy.  This 'hair' looked weird but came off easily just by washing the dirt off the main tap root.

Black carrots cut and ready for roasting

Organic black nebula carrots

I grow everything organically and found black nebula carrots grew easily with no real effort.  We had no pests or diseases in my little patch.  They grew like any other carrot, which I find to be a bit slow but really isn't too bad in the scheme of things.  They weren't overly fussed by much of anything.  

Some of my carrots got a bit dry over summer, then the rains came and made them split a little.  They didn't split too much, so it didn't bother me.  This happens with many crops and was not unexpected given the amount of rain we had.

These dark purple carrots are an heirloom variety that breed true to type, so buying seed once and then saving seed for future crops is the best way to grow them.  Carrots tend to produce enormous amounts of seed, and carrot tops can be replanted and allowed to flower, so it won't take long to select for the best performers in my garden.  The flowers were white and slightly purple, and fed a lot of beneficial insect pollinators.

Black nebula carrots are dark purple

Black Nebula carrots with potatoes

I am told that these have undertones of berry taste.  I can't taste berries at all.  I found them to taste like a mix of carrot and beetroot, I really liked it.  I don't like the taste of raw orange carrot, but I did like the taste of raw black nebula carrots.  Roasted they tasted like roast carrot mixed with roast beetroot.

When we cut the carrots they stained things with their incredible purple juice.  I am told that the juice can be used as a dye, and if you add some acidity that it will turn bright pink.  I will have to try this out one day and see for myself!

These carrots hold their intense colour when cooked.  We roasted the carrots, the roots turned an even darker black.  They looked burned to a crisp as they were coal black, yet they were tender and delicious.  They also stained potatoes that they were touching in the baking tray, making them interestingly purple too.  What fun!

I have seen pictures of carrot juice made from black nebula carrots, and I have seen pictures of carrot cakes made with them.  They look incredible.  I am not a fan of carrot juice but will have to try to make the carrot cake one day as it is crazy dark purple.

Black nebula carrots are the darkest

These black carrots are so high in antioxidants that my son ended up with black lips, teeth, and tongue, much like if he is eating mulberries.  I put them on a white plate which was also stained with a purple berry like stain, again much like mulberries.  Unlike a mulberry, the staining washed off easily.  

I am planting all of the tops from the better carrots in order to let them regrow a little and collect some seed from them.  While I don't expect them to grow another tap root, they can and should flowers and produce seed from a regrown carrot top.  I have planted them in my greenhouse to ensure purity of seed as I assume people in the area may also grow carrots and I do not want cross pollination.  

If I have some spare seed I plan to list it through my for sale page along with various other heirloom vegetable seeds, perennial vegetables, and interesting culinary herbs.  If you are interested please take a look.

Blood Sorrel - Rumex sanguineus

I have grown garden sorrel (Rumex acetosa) for years. I originally had a variety that never flowered, which was pretty great as it always had a lot of leaves. After moving house too many times I lost it. I now have a few seed grown plants, they are all pretty productive.

Garden sorrel is a highly productive perennial leaf vegetable that takes next to no effort to grow. My kids like eating sorrel raw, we also add small leaves to dishes in small amounts instead of silverbeet or spinach. My chickens appreciate being fed sorrel when there are not many other options in the garden. Sorrel leaves are great in the compost, people refer to them as being good compost activators. What that means is these leaves have a lot of minerals that compost microbes need to eat. 

Sorrel is great, but it does not cope with storage or transport. This means you will never see sorrel for sale in the shops, and if you want to eat it you will need to grow it for yourself. This plant is very productive, it produces copious amounts of large leaves. Being a perennial vegetable means you plant once and harvest forever. I don’t find it to be invasive at all, and I dig and move clumps at any time of year as they are not finicky. I find my plants tend to divide a few times each year even under pretty hostile conditions. If I hack a piece of plant off and accidentally do not get any roots they still seem to survive for me, it just takes them a little longer to grow.

I have always considered also growing a related perennial vegetable known as blood sorrel, or red veined sorrel (Rumex sanguineus). This is a very similar plant in every way, except it has green leaves with strikingly red veining. 

 

Blood sorrel is so pretty that people grow this as an ornamental in garden borders.

My daughter holding blood sorrel leaves

I am interested in perennial vegetables, especially things that are low maintenance and highly productive, and I am fond of garden sorrel which is similar. I have also read papers on how blood sorrel is an underutilised food crop, and how it could be used in developing countries to enhance food security. Anything that is being researched as a low input highly productive food crop that may help enhance food security interests me. So I bought some seeds and gave this a try.

There appear to be people selling varieties called ‘raspberry dressing’ or ‘blood spinach’, but as far as I can determine these people are just growing unnamed seed grown plants and the fun names are referring to the species rather than an improved cultivar. There seems to be a little genetic diversity among my plants, and these are simple to propagate by division, meaning it should not be too difficult to breed an improved cultivar if wanted.

Each leaf looks different 

Blood sorrel is said to be very high in vitamin A, vitamin C, iron, potassium, and a few other vitamins and minerals. The leaves and roots have been used for centuries for various healing purposes. I don’t know how well they work, but I do know if someone get hurt by stinging nettle that I can rub and smush a leaf on the site and their pain goes almost immediately. It is easy for my kids, when they are in a panic from pain and blinded by excessive tears, to find this plant in the garden as it is so distinctive. As well as all of this, each leaf has truly beautiful markings.

Leaves with unique markings 

Like most vegetables blood sorrel grows well in full sun or a little shade. It is not bothered by my winters and frosts do not seem to be any issue. It gets a bit hot and dry over summer without any damage, above 40C and some leaves get burned, presumably too dry would also be a problem. I grow in poor soil, but it grows faster and leaves get larger in better soil. No pests or diseases appear to bother it, but poultry will eat it to the ground, and kids will graze on it every day until it is just a leafless stump.

Leaves can be eaten raw or cooked. Just like French sorrel there are numerous recipes that use this plant as the hero of the dish, as well as many that use this as a side dish. The colour is pretty amazing in a garden salad, people often pick the smaller leaves for this purpose so as not to diminish from how pretty it is. Like many other leaf vegetables it is high in oxalic acid, it is safe to eat but you probably don’t want a diet that consists solely of this.

Seedlings looking good 

Blood sorrel is a perennial vegetable that is just as edible and nutritious as garden sorrel, except the red colouration is a little healthier for you. The taste of blood sorrel seems pretty much the same as regular sorrel but less acidic. Young leaves are tender and mild in taste, as leaves grow larger they become more lemony.  I find garden sorrel to be a bit too sour, but blood sorrel is less sour.

I only have younger plants, so my blood sorrel has not grown as large as my several year old garden sorrel. I am told they will be much the same size, and should divide with much the same vigour. Even the shape of the leaves is pretty similar. 

My daughter sees hearts in the markings 

At this stage I have no idea if these two species can cross to produce intergeneric hybrid plants. If they can I assume they would display hybrid vigour and hope that the resultant plants would be massive. The flowers are a bit small and difficult to work with for a few reasons, and I am not sure how compatible these species are or if this cross is possible under any circumstances, so I may not ever get around to attempting to make this cross. If you have ever tried to make this cross or can send me a link of a peer reviewed paper where this has been attempted please let me know as I would love to learn more.

I have seen photos of people growing blood sorrel as an ornamental, and they do look incredible. I think growing a row of alternating green garden sorrel with green and intensely red blood sorrel would look amazing. Being so ornamental, if times get tough and you need to grow food from a survival garden I think most people would overlook these.

If you have a little extra space in your garden I think blood sorrel are well worth growing. They are nutritious, simple to grow, healthy to eat, possibly medicinal, and high yielding. If nothing else, they are very ornamental and would draw comments from visiting gardeners as they oooh and aaah over your amazingly ornamental vegetables.

Blood sorrel divides readily, and grows easily from seed.  If I have any extra plants I will list them on my for sale page along with other perennial vegetables and interesting edible plants/seeds.

Zea diploperennis cobs Australia

This past summer I grew a perennial corn.  This one is Zea diploperennis x Zea mays, I believe it has been back crossed and contains roughly 85% diploperennis genes.   

I am told that pure diploperennis flowers under certain light conditions that are difficult to achieve in my climate, and that this cross means that it should flower at roughly the same time as domestic corn.  I am also told that crossing pure diploperennis with domestic corn is difficult, whereas crossing diploperennis with a percentage of domestic genes is much simpler.

This should mean that it should be possible to cross it with domestic corn and produce a perennial popcorn, or introduce other genes it has for disease resistance or cold tolerance etc into domestic corn.

Zea diploperennis

I had plans of crossing this with the very colourful glass gem corn, and hopefully produce a perennial multicoloured popcorn.  Unfortunately that did not happen this year.

This year the weather was odd, and many things in my garden didn't flower until very late.  The ears are not as large as they normally would be, but they still produced some seed and gave me an idea of what this plant can do.

Most of the ears were only about an inch or two long, and produced ten or so seeds.  My plants were grown in small pots of poor soil so I think double to triple this would be possible, which is still very small compared to domestic corn!

Zea diploperennis cob size

Zea diploperennis

Zea diploperennis flowers like domestic corn and appears to produce tiny little corn cobs about an inch or so long.  These have a few (sometimes only one) husk leaves that are easily peeled back, much like domestic corn.  

Unlike domestic corn, Zea diploperennis cobs are made of kernels only.  There is no woody ring or pith underneath the kernels.  Which means once you remove the husk, everything else can be crumbled into seed which is pretty cool.

I have no idea about the genetics of Zea diploperennis other than it being diploid.  The colour of the kernels seems to show some variation from white to yellow to brown.  I only started with a very small number if seeds, yet they seem to display a lot of genetic variation.

The plants themselves tiller somewhat, they are meant to be more cold tolerant than domestic corn yet are still frost sensitive, so I planted them in pots and moved them into an unheated greenhouse for the winter.  I have a feeling that this tillering habit should make it possible to divide any surviving plants in spring and hopefully share them around.

I am trying to send some seed to other growers in Australia to ensure that this interesting germplasm is not lost if something happens to my plants.

Perennial corn cob size

While I would love to cross Zea diploperennis with domestic popcorn I may never be able to achieve this as my climate is all wrong for perennial corn.  Or I may be able to lift the plants and overwinter in a frost free position.  Or I may be able to cover with mulch to protect them from freeze injury.  I really have no idea.  

I don't know how well these plants will overwinter in my climate even in my greenhouse, but I hope that they survive and are able to be divided into more plants in spring.  I don't have any extra seed this year as I plan to send all of my spare seeds to other growers who I know in different climates.  Perhaps one of them will be in the right climate and breeding something a little more useful from this will be simple.

Zea diploperennis size

I am told that the seeds from this can be popped like popcorn, or can be ground into flour pretty easily.  I am told that it makes a decent corn porridge.  I haven't tried any of this yet as I have so few plants and so few seeds.  I have no idea what it tastes like, or what the 'mouth feel' is like, as I am yet to eat any.

Given how simple it is to remove the husk, It would be easy either to leave it as is to store, or crumble it into seed.  From there feeding it to animals would be a simple matter of just feeding it out.  

If I lived somewhere with warmer winters I would like to grow a patch of this to feed to poultry.  I think this would function mt would be much like wheat or oats, but would be perennial.  Each winter the tops could be cut down for straw, but it would never need replanting.  This has potential to be a really useful permaculture crop.  Hopefully someone in a warmer climate grows this and can comment rather than me hypothesizing about it.

At this stage I think that this is more of a novelty rather than a productive vegetable.  Given that it can cross with domestic corn it has potential to use as a parent and breed some interesting things from it.  If I do have spare plants, or extra seed at some stage, I plan to list it on my for sale page.  

Zea diploperennis - perennial corn ancestor

There are a few wild ancestors of modern corn (Zea mays) that are still around.  Most don't look hugely like the corn that we are used to, but you can see how they were bred into what we use today.  Most are annuals, just like domesticated corn.  Most can be crossed with domestic corn if they can be induced to flower at the same time.  

There are a smaller number of species of perennial ancestors of corn.  Most of the perennial ones are on the brink of extinction in the wild, or already extinct on the wild.  I think there may be a few wild species that are growing in such small areas that they have yet to be described.  

Recently someone sent me some seeds of a hybrid between modern corn and the perennial Zea diploperennis.  From memory this contains ~15% mays genes.  I was very excited to grow this as I am not sure how much perennial corn is in Australia.

I planted the seed and ended up with a small number of plants.  I put each plant in a pot of soil and moved this into the garden over the growing season.  Growing in pots means I can move them around and hopefully protect them over winter.

I am told that diploperennis can be used similar to popcorn, but with smaller ears and few kernels in each ear.  If this was crossed with regular popcorn it should be possible to create a perennial popcorn.  As many wild plants contain genes for disease resistance or pest resistance that are not present in their domestic counterparts, a perennial popcorn that uses diploperennis as one of the parents could be very useful to grow in low input permaculture farming or backyard gardens like mine who don't like to spray anything.

Zea diploperennis in pots next to popcorn, pumpkin, and beans

Zea diploperennis tillering a little

Zea diploperennis flowering in my garden

As it has some modern corn genes, it should flower under my climate without having to manipulate daylength, and it should flower roughly at the same time as domestic corn.  It should be able to cross with regular corn.  There is a lot of "should" and very little that I know for certain about this plant.

I had hoped to cross this with pop corn, with the hopes of eventually producing a perennial popcorn.  To give it the greatest chance of working I grew it next to some genetically diverse multi-coloured popcorn.

Unfortunately the weather was odd this summer, and many of my vegetables flowered really late or not at all.  My diploperennis didn't start to flower until the popcorn was already harvested.  Some diploperennis appear to be producing cobs, but I am not sure if any of them contain seed or if they will all be empty.  As the diploperennis are flowering so late I am not sure if they even could produce any seed prior to winter.  

Some of the diploperennis plants tillered a little, others did not tiller at all.  None of them got more than a foot and a half tall and they all had stems almost as thick as a pencil.  This was likely due to the soil I grew them in combined with the cooler than usual summer.  Then again, perhaps they are always scrawny plants.

I can't imagine that these would be perennial in my climate as they are not adapted to frosts.  I planted my diploperennis in pots of soil so I can move them into an unheated greenhouse over winter to protect them from frosts.  Hopefully they can survive over winter, but I won't really know until spring.

I don't have enough seeds or plants to share any at the moment.  I grow and sell a lot of interesting plants through my for sale page, but it is unlikely that I will have diploperennis available any time soon.  I don't even know if this can survive winter in my climate in an unheated greenhouse.  Fingers crossed I can over winter these plants and eventually have enough to share around a little.  

Potato seedlings from true potato seed Australia

I was transplanting my seed grown potatoes the other day.  I have a few different breeding lines, some diploid, some tetraploid, some wild ancestors of modern potatoes, all grown from true potato seed.  

Growing from true botanical potato seed yields interesting results, and allows me to breed and create new varieties.  As the parent stock is usually quite heterozygous, each seedling is genetically unique.

Most of my potato seedlings looked much the same, some had a few stolons, others did not.  At this tiny size neither is unexpected.  One of my seedlings is producing tiny little tubers.

I can hardly wait to see what these turn into.

Potato seedling with tiny tubers

I didn't break this off, there is soil covering the stolon

This little seedling really wants to live!  It had 3 tiny little tubers (not all of them are in my photos) and a few other stolons.  It has since been planted in its own pot so I can evaluate it at the end of the season.

I mostly try to grow diploid potatoes as I find they taste better.  Unfortunately they tend to yield lower than tetraploids.  

These seedlings are from tetraploid potatoes, their parentage is far superior to anything you can get from the shops so I decided to try a few seedlings and see what I could produce.  It is far too early to tell, but hopefully something great comes out of this line.

I sell a small number of seed potatoes each year through my for sale page.  These are from lines that I have developed myself and grown from true potato seeds.  I can only do this in their correct season, some lines harvest several times per year, other lines only harvest once per year.  If you are interested keep an eye on my for sale page.