Hybridizing corn?

15 years ago

I am thinking of crossing "Hopi Pink" and "Bloody Butcher". I want to create a corn with a hopi corns drought tolerance and rooting characteristics that has pink to red kernals and can be eaten in the milk stage like sweet corn but isn't as awful sweet as peaches and cream and those sorts that you find at the markets to buy to eat. My question is.. Is it possible to achieve what I want to achieve, and approximately how many years might it take?

I also considered crossiong "Hopi Pink" and "Ruby Queen", but this year I am planting Hopi Pink and Bloody Butcher corns.

Also... How do I cross it? Do I just brush the pollen onto my hands then rub the other corns flower head with it and vice versa? (I may not have used the right terminology calling it a flower head but I hope you know what I mean).

Comments (3)

farmfreedom
15 years ago
plant the varieties in rows next to each othertake the tassels off the variety that you want to save for seed then all the kernals on the detassled variety( Hopi pink) will be from the one you plan on eating (bloody butcher ) and will have to be crossbreeds as they will not be able to cross pollinate . It should take you 4 generations to get what you want . good luck
catincanada
Original Author
15 years ago
Ok I got the seed and it's planted but now I have another question. If they dont "flower at the same time as each other can I save the pollen from the earlier one to use on the later one? I am concerned my hybridizing may not work they have different maturity dates listed on the seed pack. Or is it possible they will flower together but one just takes longer to head out (get a mature cob) then the other(if thats the case I wont have to worry).
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farmfreedom
15 years ago
In the case of different maturity dates the easiest way to overcome that obstacle is to plant them to mature on the same dates. Plant the one that takes 75 days to maturity wait 25 days then plant the one that takes 50 days to maturity . Then they will mature at the same time .