eastern gamagrass

http://discovermagazine.com/1997/dec/thecornwar1286

the good news is that the eastern gamagrass has made it through the winter and chlorophyll is finding its way back up into the leaves...i planted thirty seeds in the fall of 2009, letting them winter over and i was rewarded with three plants in the spring of 2010...ten percent...not bad since it seems that eastern gamagrass is no easier to establish than it is to get rid of...another invasive species on campus...the price of research...it's in the garden because mary eubanks holds that it is an ancestor of maize, along with teosinte ( there is no movement on that front yet...on campus or at homes...i will whoop if there is)...hugh iltis and the intellectual descendants of g.w. beadle say she's crazy and that teosinte is the sole source of maize...this is an argument that may have resolved itself ( although nothing ever seems to be over in acadamia )...but my focus today is on the return of the plant, not the argunent that led to its inclusion in the plant list...it would be pleasing to have teosinte present as well...but the plant and i have a checkered history and i will hope while being rationally skeptical of positive results...winter wheat, intermediate wheatgrass, and now gamagrass chugging along in the garden...we're looking at potatoes going in here at home this weekend if the weather holds...another post on cutting and callousing later this week...things are looking up.