we will have seeds and plants

out back more seeds are becoming visible through the thinning husks and another ear has popped open ( which is on my desk as i type ) so more seeds are maturing and this is good news...

and in the damp paper towels, two more seeds from one usda accession and one from another were ready to plant so the went into peat pots under the lights in the basement...

the three i planted saturday are greening up nicely and two have well defined leaves...it is early days yet...indoor teosinte is a perilous business and it can be very disappointing..i have succeeded before however the plants that i grew were in containers that had been started outside and brought in...this may be a tricky situation and i am still learning...there will be more as i find my way.

a season at both ends

there are many teosinte ears that have seeds showing through thinning husks out back...

and a few that are opening up to expose still green seeds...

however i found two ears that were hanging down with the husks split open exposing seed heads ready to shatter...a sure sign the plant has decided these seeds are as done as they are going to get...i brought them in ans will...eventually...be test germinating them to see if they are viable...

as a morphological side note, dense yellow #2 field corn does the same thing...when the season is over the ears hang down from the stalks prior to harvest...they are too thoroughly husked to open and shatter...human intervention has rendered them reproductively reliant on humans...we aren't quite finished yet though...there is movement in the basement too...

after lwess than twenty-four hours under the grow lights the three germinated usda teosinte seeds i planted in peat pots yesterday are beginning to deploy their first leaves from seed to shoots the teosinte season will be moving as far int the winter as i can take it...teosinte is not a houseplant...we will see what transpires.

october spring wheat

when i harvested the hard re spring wheat this past july i set it in the basement to wait as a long winter's night project of threshing and winnowing...all fin and good...there has been water appearing on the basement floor on and off and while its provenance is still undetermined ( i am inclined to think seepage from the sporadic heavy rains the non-existent climate change is bringing ) there is periodic water there...while i was bringing in some deck furniture i looked down and...

that an ear of wheat had fallen into the water and virtually every grain had germinated in place...and not all that recently..the shoots are about six inches long...

with well developed root systems...

so i cut the stem off the germinated ear...

and planted them en masse under the lights...they won't mind the closeness..and we will see what happens...honestly...i had not planned a major indoor season this year because i knew if the teosinte germinated there would bee a need for the space...dna is relentless though and the wheat wouldn't be denied...so we will do what we can to sustain it and bring it to fruition...we may plant the results outside in march.

ears

there's a hard freeze forecast for tonight so here hare the "before" photos

planting teosinte

the batch of government seeds that were test germinated in 2003 are germinating at roughly 30% ( from a selection of ten seeds ) with one that was ready to plant so i put it in potting mix in a peat pot and then under the grow light in the basement...

the second government seeds that were test germinated in 2013 are germinating at 90% ( once again from a selection of ten seeds ) including two that were ready to go into pots..so 15% of the test gerination seeds are planted with , obviously, more to come...

the old northern tepehuan teosinte seed from native seed search that i found in the bottom of a box has turned out to be 40% viable..it is doubtlessly newer seed than the 2003 government variety and the discovery means, as long as i freeze it, i will have viable seed for the foreseeable future...can't argue with that.

rain

temperatures more indicative of autumn have arrived...and along with it significant rains...

the last time it rained, nine days ago, this rain gauge collected just over an inch and a half of precipitation...

today it shows five...a three and a half inch rainfall today in the middle of my back yard...

the one on the north side between the housed uncharacteristically held a shade less than the other on the fourteenth of the month...

today, characteristically, it is topped out...we have had some rain today...

the evidence in on the petals, silks, and ears...

the hawthorn tree in the front yard stood out sharply as i pulled in the drive this evening...

the bees that gathered the nectar in the hawthorn blooms this past may...

will help feed the birds as winter deepens...nature is a web of interconnections...this one is so obvious i can see it plainly...there are others, more complex and obscured that human cognition has little hope of finding, much less understanding...time to relinquish the idea of control and be part.