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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Friday, July 23, 2010

Signs of Progress! Face of the earth landraces.

C. Pepo Chromatica (ornamental edible mix). This one is the result of five years, genes from my own collections as well as from friends from Homegrown Goodness and the contributions of the Long Island Seed Project. Produces every year regardless of circumstance and has been consistently trialed in low soil fertility on heavy red clay with zero irrigation! Normally there are many more "mini-pumpkin"/"baby boo" types to be seen, and in the second harvest I will get a picture of those as well. Very diverse landrace type with excellent flavor and not overly stringy like most C. Pepo's.

The buff colored C. Moshata type to the right is an F4 generation cross between choctaw sweet potato and Long Island Cheese. Very productive, drought tolerant, and reliable with excellent texture, flavor, and moisture content.
A particularly nice variation from the genepool/landrace Chromatica group. "Lemon Marang" which has been self pollinated.
Early pre-drydown samples of "Amanda Palmer" dent corn, a new broad based synthetic/genepool/landrace with a foundation of UK Tuxpeno and contributions from Lancaster Sure Crop, Bloody Butcher, Boone County White, Johnson County White, Reids Yellow Dent, JF3, Tennesee Red Cob, Daemon Morgans Kentucky Butcher, Kculi, Oneida White Flour, and many others. Those pictured above are the earliest to approach maturity with the twon on the far left being self pollinated drought tolerant Tuxpeno and the 6 on the right showing various pollen influences.

More to come soon.....

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