seeds and a season indoors

the teosinte in the basement is doing fine...a couple of plants became too"leggy and toppled over and a couple germinated but did not grow...nothing unusual in either...there are still eleven plants under the lights...we will see how it goes...

the wheat is a nice shade of green and growing...i am in untested waters here...i have some idea of what to expect from the teosinte...the wheat will be an eleusinian mystery for me...

the mashua harvest was not the greatest...however it has, hopefully, put me in a position to produce seed tubers for next season...there will be a container crop next spring if this succeeds...

i have been collecting teosinte seed ( more on that in a minute ) as it matures, however numerous ears have already opened and shattered on leaving as scattering of seed on the ground...

i am inclined to leave them to see what transpires...

even ears with green and immature seeds are opening...

i have had a number of seeds drying indoors for a week or so and it was time to sort them, mostly by size and color, into batches of varying perceived viability...actually the viability of all this seed is suspect and only a test germination ( next spring so any that do can be planted outdoors ) will tell...

i separated out the seeds that were still green and those for which the seed case had not completely covered the endosperm ( like ones in the open but unfinished ears in the photos above ) and set them aside...

i sported out a second group of light colored, smaller, but not green seeds into a second group ( you can see some unfinished seed here too ) which may yield some usable seed...

and, finally, a group of two-hundred and eighty larger, darker seeds i perceive as having the best possibility of being viable...we will see in a few months...i will continue to look for mature seed however i am thinking the season for that is done...this has been by far the longest growing season i have had for teosinte since i started with it seven years ago..we will see what it has yielded soon enough.

sub-ears

seasonal cold has finally arrived and a hard freeze has killed the teosinte plants pout back...there will be no further seed maturation so i have been bringing in the most likely looking ears from the plants and husking the seeds...

the ears are all composed of a variable number of sub0ears, each with a single spike of seeds in its own husk...

this particular ear has six sub-ears...

and rendered forty-four seeds by my count...

and altogether the six ears i brought in this evening left me with around two hundred seeds..the darker seeds are more mature and have more developed endosperm and have the best chance of being viable...i would expect little from the seeds that are still green and, as they dry, i will be sorting them by maturity and getting a better count...with all the ears i have husked int he last three evenings i would estimate i have gathered ( and i am not finished looking over the plants...i have been doing it the failing light of a mid-autumn evening...a better look in daylight tomorrow ) somewhere around five hundred seeds with possibly a third or so with good prospects of viability..once they dry i will be freezing the best prospects and doing a test germination in spring when i can plant any successful ones outdoors.

praxis

the string of frost free days beyond the average first frost date continue but i am thinking their days are numbered...there is a hard freeze forecast for tomorrow night..

daytime highs have been in a "normal" range for the time of year, however the night time lows have, so far, been above freezing...even with the extended season some of the teosinte ears are verdant and will most likely not produce mature seed before the season comes to an end...

other ears have dried on the stalk and split open, ready to shatter...i have been collecting these as i find the...and brining some others that seem to be nearly as finished in to dry out completely...

and as the husks dry and separate i am collecting the seed to freeze...i will be test germinating this batch in the spring in order to plant any that succeed as a second genration...

we'll see how these do ( beyond the couple of green ones in there ) in april sometime.

downturn

it was damp and foggy in the cornfield by the supermarket this morning and the light wasn't the best ( which is a way of explaining some of the following blur )...whatever the case i wadded in ( literally ) and got my feet wet looking at some big grass...

the ears of field corn are turning down...

and so is the ancestor that established the tradition...

clearly the season is ending ( there is finally frost in the forecast..a bit on that in a minute ) and this is a sign both sets of plants are aware..so i am hopeful but guarded ( let's not drag optimism into this ) about viable seed...we will see...no final word yet... as for the rest of the yard ( almost )

the bell peppers are still blooming...

as are the nasturtiums and marigolds...

there is supposed to be a hard freeze wednesday night so the yacon will need to come in beforehand...

the mashua is verdant and showing no signs of autumn on its damp and gren leaves...yet it will need to come in as well...it is averse to cold...

and a wealth of brussels sprouts as well...

the last photo is something i have never aseen in person before..an ear of zea mays parvaglumis emerging from the stalk ( last year i had to rip the stalks open to have a look at the still very green seeds )...since it has was appears to be an infinte season i have not had a climate that supported it to this point before..there will never be any viable seed...however it is gratifying just to see an ear.