i went back to campus this morning to finish the mulching that the rain interrupted yesterday and to do maintenance on the rest of the garden...while i was there i stuck a piece of cardboard in the ground to isolate the northern tepehuan teosinte from the green backdrop and to give a better view of the branches that are starting to form at the base of the plant...it's about a foot tall now and i wasn't convinced it was teosinte until i saw the branches...that pretty much iced it for me...there are two more individuals in the campus garden and three in my back yard but none of the others have branched yet...but they are as far along as this one...there will be more photos as they all develop...the zea diploperennis in the middle photo is coming along really well too...always surprised by the strong resemblance between it and the zea mays in the fourth photo...it may not be the only ancestor, but it seems that it has to be one...today's surprise comes from the asparagus...it is forming berries in its third year ( i planted year old crowns in spring 2010 )...that the asparagus is reproducing isn't the surprise so much as that when the supplier sold me the crowns they told me that they were all male plants because they were more productive of edible spears...all fine and good, but it is female plants that produce the berries, so at least two of the plants the supplier sent were female or i have a genetic mystery on my hands...so much for the ability of my supplier to sex asparagus plants...now i get to try to grow a second generation from seed...spiffy...now if the rain backs off for a while and lets the garden dry out and the temperature gets a bit more into the comfort range of the grasses and jerusalem artichokes things should move along nicely...cowpeas are next on the agenda after the last of the turnips are harvested...more movement...more work...more to learn.
Yeah, i agree. Out of the two teosinte's i've grown (both the N. Tepehuan and the Diploperennis), the perennial teosinte sure looks like it's an ancestor of modern corn. I don't necessarily think think that gamma grass was the other ancestor, but based on what I've read about Mary Eubanks work, i think that modern corn was the result of two teosinte's crossing with each other. In my opinion based on genetic evidence and proximity, i think that corn is the result of Zea diplpperennis X either Zea parviglumis or Zea Mexicana.
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