the maize on campus has pretty much run its course...i harvested the ears a few weeks ago but was leaving them be to take a few more photos to use as a comparison with the teosinte...the time had come however, so i dug them up and brought them home to get a closer look at the root system...soaked them in a bucket like the wheat roots and laid them out on the sidewalk...the top photo is of two sets of roots...you can see how the support roots had actually extended below the surface and added to the plant's nourishment as well as buttressing the stalk...one of the stalks had a secondary ear complete with husk and tassels...the third photo is the plants on campus just before i dug them up and the last one is simply three root systems...nowhere near as deep as the wheat, coming in at a shade over seven inches deep ( about the same depth as jerusalem artichoke roots, although the sunchoke roots radiate out over a considerably larger area than the maize roots do...all those tubers have to go somewhere) and tightly packed, it took a while to soak the soil out of them...moe on root systems as the underground harvest ( sunchokes and chinese yams ) takes off later this autumn.
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