Bloody Butcher is normally available from Victory Seeds or Seed Savers Exchange. It usually produces red ears, sometimes reddish-pink, or sometimes with an odd reddish-purplish kernel here or there. It is very decorative, and I have grown it only for autumn decorations, so can't comment on its flavor. When I did grow it...and it has been several years ago....it was very tall and produced huge ears.

Technically, to prevent corn from cross-pollination, you have to isolate your corn by 2 miles from any other corn. In the real world where I live, though, I grow two separate varieties 30' apart with no problems, but I don't save seed. To save seed, plant them as far apart as you can and put something like a double or triple row of thickly-planted sunflowers (maybe Jerusalem artichokes), grain amaranth,lion's tail or something similar between the two types of corn to try to prevent wind-blown cross-pollination.

You also could use time isolation. Plant your Kandy Korn at its normal time and wait several weeks (I like to wait until the earlier corn is at least knee-high and growing well) and then plant the later corn with the longer DTM. If logic prevails, the early corn will pollinate first and, later on, the later corn will pollinate. Logic doesn't always win out, though, because the weather can do illogical things....like it can turn cold and stall the early corn causing late pollination, or the heat/warmer soil can speed up the later corn and cause it to tassel and silk earlier than you had expected. Most years, though, I've found time isolation works as long as I don't plant the second variety any earlier than about a month after the first one. Here in southern OK, I like to get the early corn in the ground near the end of March and the later one in the ground near the end of April.

Once you first corn has pollinated, you want for the tassels to be through shedding pollen before the silks emerge on the late corn. Some people remove the tassels from the early corn once all the ears are pollinated so there isn't any stray pollen left lying around to pollinate the silks of the late corn. Obviously, you could hand-pollinate your later corn and bag the ears but it is a tremendous amount of work (but only for about 2-3 days or maybe up to a week if the silks are not emerging all at once).

George probably can tell you how much distance he uses for isolation I haven't had any trouble in time isolation but that might be more because of luck than anything else.

Dawn

I hope they germinate for you.

Dawn

But for long term maintenance of a variety, one really should give lots and lots of space isolation, probably more than most people in suburban settings can do. But in my opinion, it is better to grow it and try saving seed than not do it at all.

George

George

The genetic bottleneck George mentioned is called 'inbreeding depression' and it can be a big issue when saving seeds of O-P corn.

Basically, if corn is not saved from enough different ears from different plants, then undesirable traits quickly begin to appear in the corn--and in can happen in one year's time. The undesirable traits include shorter plants, lowered yields and delayed production.

If you have see inbreeding depression appear in your plants, you're supposed to pull out and destroy the affected plants and not save seed from them, because inbreeding depression is irreversible.

Dawn