Alfred Reed Bishop and Doris William Butler

The picture above is the very tap root of Bishop's Homegrown/Face Of The Earth Seed. My grandparents shortly after moving to Pekin Indiana from Greensburg KY in 1947 where they purchased the farm that is now Bishop's Homegrown. This picture was taken in Pekin in front of the old co-op next to the old railroad depot, neither of which exist today.

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Thursday, January 8, 2009

Priori Proof: The Mob Rules Sweet Corn



Above you can see an image of Country Gentleman/Howling Mob sweet corn, alongside the image of some Astronomy Domine breeding material. I am expounding upon/once again stealing Tom Wagner's idea of a Priori Proof of future existence of a home bred plant (see cotton for more info on this).

Anyhow, here is the premise. I bred/am breeding Astronomy Domine in my image of what an Open Pollinated sweet corn should be; colorful, nutritious, attractive, beautiful, hardy, cold soil tolerant, productive in poor soil, survival food, sweet and starchy without tasting like candy. Idealic if you will. Dreamy. Day dreamy for me and my hungry stomach and corn tooth here in the middle of winter. This is part of why I named it Astronomy Domine, it is the most idyllic and psychedelic of all sweet corns, the color lends it to that credence, it's free will to be sexually promiscuous with other corns evokes the "free love" message of early Pink Floyd and Syd Barret, so it is named.

OK, that indulges the Hippie part of my soul.

Now lets make something "kick ass", Sexy, Metal, the other side of my Ego and Id.

How better to do so than create a corn just like Astronomy Domine, but literally looking chaotic? Like it's falling apart, doesn't know what it's doing.

I've always liked the look of shoe peg corns (even though I generally prefer larger kernels) and though I'm not sure if they are the same cultivar or two different but closely related cultivars (info is hard to come by about this on the net, got any?) I think it's funny that both Country Gentleman (evoking a specific image, corn dressed up for Sunday Church?) and Howling Mob (evoking another completely different image Corn worth fighting over, going to war even?) refer to a very similar looking set of corns.

But then I tend to over analyze everything.

However, here are my thoughts. Let's corrupt some Astronomy Domine. Let's select for darker anti-oxidant colors (to kick cancer in the ass a few good times) darker purples and reds, do sway with the pastels, whites and yellows. In this line it will be all or nothing, let us put those colors in a Howling Mob arrangement! Let's name it after the metal god's themselves, Black Sabbath, and their greatest album (with their best singer) of all time. I shall give birth one day to "The Mob Rules!" Sweet corn!

Now, I will track down a lb. of Country Gentleman or Howling Mob and make the cross! My will be done!

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Oh Alan - you are making me wish we had the space to seriously play around with corn!

mostlypurple said...

I'd buy it.