This year, I decided to carry out an experiment to test the claims made in a well known seed catalogue, that isolation from other sweet corn varieties was not required for the varieties Swift F1 and Lark F1.
It was a tough test as I grew 5 different varieties in the same bed. The varieties were Swift F1, Lark F1, Mirai White GT 1007, Honeydew, and a mystery sweet corn from a "Gardening Which" trial a few years ago.
All the varieties were obviously affected by cross-pollination with different coloured kernels or harder kernels, especially noticeable after cooking.
The advice must still be to only grow one variety of sweetcorn at the same time, unless they produce their pollen several weeks apart, such as an early variety and a late variety.
Some of the resulting cobs had very tough, starchy kernels in amongst the tender sweet kernels.
Had a similar result myself this year , :)
Quote from: Mr Smith on October 29, 2010, 06:39:49
Had a similar result myself this year , :)
Yes, same here.
I grew a blue sweetcorn and a yellow sweetcorn in the same year and blue kernels appeared in the yellow and vice versa.
That is very useful info, thanks.
Can you disclose which 'well-known seed catalogue'?!
;)
I'll be growing two varieties next year, but seperating them, there'll be a big bed on the plot with a couple of packets of Zucchero from Franch (IIRC, big shiny packet, lots of seeds, I have two packs) and the other is something I can't remember from Suttons that I piced up in my feeding frenzy at Wyevales during their 50p sale... as were the Zucchero's I think.... any way I'll grow the Sutton one at home somewhere.... I might give a few of the Zucchero's a go in th epolytunnel if I can justify the space....
chrisc
Quote from: realfood on October 28, 2010, 23:23:15
Some of the resulting cobs had very tough, starchy kernels in amongst the tender sweet kernels.
I find "tendersweets" rather tasteless, but it's getting so hard to source anything else that many newbies may not be aware that the traditional varieties
must be cooked within minutes of picking (20 max) - or all the sugar (which is ideal/just enough for adults - too little for children) - will fade away to be replaced by that starchy taste.
This may seem too much trouble for anyone who hasn't tried it - but it is worth it - it replaces that sugary taste with a 'wow factor' that is far more rewarding.
Forgive me for asking - but I'm sure a lot of tendersweet growers have got into the habit of bringing them home and then leaving them until they start preparing the evening meal...
PS. there was an episode of MASH where the colonel was daydreaming about home leave - which involved taking a primus stove into the cornfield and having the water boiling before picking - so the corn went in only seconds later - that's the way to do it!
The well known seed catalogue that makes the claim about Lark and Swift is T&M. As far as I know, no other seed catalogue makes the same claim.
It is great to see this has been done on A4A, I have been telling folks about cross pollination for years and as many of you know I have several,very long explicit explanations on here.regarding corn varieties, habitsm classifications etc.It is sometimes very hard for newbies to realise how easy it is to cross and ruin your corn. Seed catalogues in the UK really don't help and in fact one..namely Thompson and Morgan actually state that it is safe to plant one of theirs along with anything else which is nonsense.This makes me really cross. To be safe it is best to first find out what classification your corn is and it rarely says on a UK seedpacket, then when you know you can follow a couple of rules to be able to grow two conflicting types if the window of maturity is big enough. I have a big inventory list on corn types and can usually tell anyone what classification theor corn is if they do need help,
Thankyou for doing this trial, great job you guys..just super.
XX Jeannine
Tozers seeds, the supplier of sweetcorn seed for UK farmers, has some interesting information for farmers growing sweetcorn. Go to www.tozerseeds.co.uk then sweetcorn> sweetcorn production.
I bought Lark because of a piece in GYO magazine saying it didn't isolating.
Jeanine - I remember reading your explanation a few years ago and so since have only ever grown one variety of sweetcorn.
Makes it easy really - I just choose which one I would like to grow and buy two -ahem or more - packets (working on the assumption that you can never have too many seeds).
Alison
I will be growing only one variety of sweetcorn next year which will be the one from 'Franki' italian seed company, :)
One day I'd very much like to try breeding out my own variety of corn, but it would need more space dedicated to it than I can manage at the moment. Meanwhile, any info like this is well worth having. If I ever get that far, I may want to try crossing several varieties.
If you saved the seeds from 2005 the Gardening Which? variety was I think Quick Treat a sugary enhanced type, which could have accounted for the chewy kernels. The others are all supposed to be tendersweets so any crossing of pollen should not be noticeable, except for the colour difference. Were any of your neighbours growing older varieties? My understanding is that you can mix supersweet and tendersweet varieties, but that older varieties will produce tougher kernels.
Even if you only grow one variety, there will always be the opportunity for cross pollination unless all your lottie neighbours grow the same variety which i am sure they wont. If you both grow different varieties, there is only a fence or boundary separating the two varieties.
Next year i intend to grow an early and a late crop but ain't gonna get too hung up over the cross pollination malarkey, more so due to the reason above. ::) ::)
I wish I knew the name of the mystery "Which" variety, but I had already come to the conclusion that it was the real odd one out from the various varieties that I was growing. My neighbours sweetcorn(unknown variety) was some 15 m downwind of mine and unlikely to have caused much trouble for me.
I am slightly confused after reading of the Tozers commercial growers' advice on separation, and trying to compare it with the list of types and varieties in the Wickipedia list http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_sweetcorn_varieties.
I sent this e-mail to a sweetcorn expert:-
I wonder if you can clarify for me if the extra tender types of sweet corn such as Swift F1 and Lark F1, require to be isolated from Sh2 types of sweet corn to prevent cross-pollination.
The reply is :-In order to achieve a perfect extra tender pollination then isolation is advised. In practice however the odd cross-pollination between a standard supersweet and an extra tender is unnoticeable and therefore not necessary (it will only affect the odd individual kernel).
This corresponds with the results of my experiment, in that I did notice different coloured kernels on Swift and Lark because I was also growing Mirai White and this showed that there was some cross-pollination.
So it looks as if T&M may have got it wrong in their catalogue.
Hmm, my sweetcorn weren't brill this year, but I put it down to lack of rain, even though the ground was damp a trowels depth down.
2007 - Swift - 90% germination, a brilliant sweet, tender crop.
2008 - Swift - germination rate down to 50%, still managed 36 good plants, and nice crop.
2009 - Lark - miffed by Swifts germination in 2008 tried Lark, also did about 12 Swifts, good germination, gave excess seeds to neighbour, found these a bit tougher than my 2007 Swifts, but still lovely.
2010 - Found about a dozen old Swift seeds, and grew these alongside Lark again. Neighbour now having the sweetcorn bug, grew Incredible about 15ft away from my crop, this years harvest were shorter and tougher, we did still get some good ones, but not half as many as I'd hoped for; as above I thought it was lack of rain; but could it have been X-Pollination???
Sadly, Mr Next-Door passed away in July, so I will make sure that I grow either all Swift of Lark for both families next year.
Does anyone here have a preference between Lark & Swift?
I used Northern extra sweet f1 this year excellent results dispite the poor start, the plants looked half dead when they went in. Loads of cobs, great pollination. Will probably grow them again but determined to get a strawberry popcorn crop this time. It's third time lucky ;). Do I need to separate them?
Sally A, I think that Swift and Lark are a tendersweet variation of the (Sh2) type, while Incredible is a (se) sugary extender type and cross-pollination will lead to a degradation in tenderness and sweetness of Swift and Lark.
Thanks Realfood, next year I'm in charge of growing for us and next door, so will ensure they are all the same variety.