i drove out to the campus (which is a ghost town today) to check up on the wheat...i have been a bit concerned ( and still am) but today was a bit of a relief as the plant population is finally starting to grow. the third and fourth photos are of some of the fifty sprouts i counted today...hopefully a few more days of moderate weather will allow them to become more established...they need a few more inches of growth before dormancy for any sizable portion to survive winter and do some rhyzomatic spreading...the top photo is the garden as it heads into the mulching season...that's coming up in a few weeks...the second photo is of the stand of zea diploperennis...still up and running despite the cool weather...it will hit a wall at the first hard frost...the bottom photo is of a northern tepehuan teosinte ear in my back yard...i have been covering that plant with frost cloth every night recently just to be safe...this is a race with freezing weather which cannot be that far off...i am curious to see what happens.
Hey Fred! I'm back today. The work your doing with the teosinte is exciting!
ReplyDeleteI was actually able to hand pollinate the Zea mexicana plant and the Northern Tepehuan teosinte with the pollen of the Zea mexicana. I'm really stoked about it, but they only have about a day and a half before we get a big snow storm. I hope it's enough time to fertilize the seed.
I'm going to try and cut them down and bring them inside to dry when the time comes. Oh, p.s. i put a post about teosinte on my blog if your interested.
http://keen101.wordpress.com/2011/10/21/growing-prehistoric-corn-teosinte/
best of luck with your seeds...the northern tepehuan teosinte was far more difficult to establish than the zea diploperennis...i had only two mature plants of the former but large stands of the diploperennis both on campus and at home...i have soome potted diploperennis i have brought in to keep under the gro-light this winter to see if i can pull it through for a second season...if not i have more seed for that too..."wild and weedy" ancestors and their current relationship with domesticates are a new area of interest...wild potatoes into the mix next spring...i'll check out your blog forthwith
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