Adding endophytes to corn

So after reading about James F. White and his research. It turns out indigenous peoples used local grasses to inoculate corn plants. They would soak the corn seeds in wild grasses for a period of time and than plant them. See here
More can be found here https://archive.org/details/cu31924101546921/page/n31/mode/2up

Excerpt

It was recorded in the book 'Iroquois Foods
and Food Preparation'[4] that the Iroquois would gather roots
of common reed grass (Phragmites australis), bottle brush
(Hystrix patula), Elymus canadiensis, and other common
woodland grasses. Roots would be rinsed and placed in warm
water, probably to aid in the removal or exiting of bacterial
endophytes from roots (and root hairs) into the water. In
some cases, roots were boiled—and this likely resulted in
activation of Bacillus endospores in older parts of the roots.
The Native Americans would then soak and partially
germinate corn seeds in the liquid derived from wild grass
roots. After inoculation with root bacteria, the seeds were
planted in corn mounds. It is difficult to envision how the
Native Americans developed their biostimulant methods, but
it is likely that corn growth and health were considerably
improved beyond the growth of corn without the corn
medicine. It may also be considered that the method for
inoculation with biostimulant microbes used by the Native
Americans, and wherever farmers of different cultures used
similar methods, was likely superior to that used in modern
agriculture in terms of microbial diversity. In modern
methods we tend to select a defined group of soil or plant
microbes to use as biostimulants—while the Native
Americans obtained a larger undefined community of
biostimulant microbes from a selection of wild grasses, and
this increased their chances of obtaining a selection
(community) of microbes that were already adapted to
grasses. In essence, the Native Americans transferred the
entire root microbiome from wild grasses to cultivated corn
to better cultivate their corn crops.

So what i ended up doing was much smaller scale than that. I found one grass which was growing in the bed's i was going to plant the corn into. I washed the roots and the plant. Soaked the plant in water for 12 hours. Put the corn in for about 14 hours. Than planted the corn.

I would have soaked it longer however the weather here has been cold and wet. I mean last year i planted (Direct seeded)corn may the 5th! This year i planted the corn may 29th and it came up june the 5th.

So i am hoping this helps my corn grow. I am trying to develop a corn which germinates(Direct sown) in cool weather, shells easily and provides a crop with minimal inputs from me.

Alot of this has been inspired by Joseph Lofthouse.

Very cool Jordan!  Did you plant any seed without the soak for comparison?  I don't see how that soak could hurt anything do you?  Might have to try it myself.

I'll be interested in your results Jordan. I did the same thing based on Dr. White's information. My corn is coming up but it's been wet and really cold here too so it's been slow. At least the corn hasn't rotted in the ground due to the weather. I'm hoping for improved growth this year using this method along with more careful seed saving to preserve the endophytes at the end of the season.

I did notice with my tomatoes that the plants from seed I save (no acid washing or fermentation to kill bacteria) are twice as big as the two varieties I bought commercially and are more hardy looking. It could be variety but it could be endophytes too.

If anyone is interested, there is a course on endophytes and one on growing landraces at https://growingmodernlandraces.thinkific.com/

So no I didn't plant any which has not been soaked.

I believe when i do this next year i will find a few more grasses as well as i will soak the seeds for longer. I remember reading they soaked the corn until the corn started sprouting...

Here is what the corn looks like about 60 days after those first photos. We have had a rather cool summer. So far we have had hot weather for about 3 weeks.

I have watered them once during the heat wave. They have not received any pee from me or attention otherwise....

Next season (a bit late to do at this point this season) I plan to try growing a type of corn in 4 different ways:
1) my regular way
2) pre-soaked at same amount of time as the next 2
3) pre-soaked with native grasses prepared in this manner
4) pre-soaked with Bermuda grass prepared in this manner

I'm hoping that the vigor of Bermuda grass might be able to be transferred in some way to the corn. If anyone else here has tried it (or knows of someone who has), I'd be all ears. Yes, pun intended.

I'm a big believer in microbiomic providing and i see this as copying the local microbiome surrounding the grassroots onto the corn roots at minimum. But also i've heard things like soak the seed in your mouth so the seed gets to know your microbial footprint and adapts to that somehow and then provides the planter with what it needs. To me the mouth method comes across as very human centered thinking without dismissing completely the notion that in some cases it could work somehow. Placebo is a powerful medicine.
I just like to think that the corn is a biological entity  in itself and if we give it what it needs it will come to full fruition. But how will we know what it needs if we do not provide is with the full spectrum of locally available microbiomes? Dr Bryant Redhawk came up with this method of taking a walk in nature and when you spot a beautiful healthy looking tree dig up some soil to collect this microbial family. I've been doing this for quite some years now and try to add differing tree groups microbiome. I believe finally it is the plant/shrub/tree deciding with who it wants to create these specific rootrelations. And i believe i'm stabllising the soillife by maximizing biodiversity on a micro level. Bringing in all these differing soiltype microbiomes can recreate a place where everything available to the soil is present in the garden i work and will depart to friends/family i give a plant. I like that idea too.
So i read this topic and think it's a kind of limited view from the corn's perspective. being brought in from elsewhere it might benefit from  some different soil dweller not present in the grass endophytes.
And combining this thought train with Joseph Lofthouse adaptation gardening's, could it be most beneficial to grow a variety of differing corn strains as they all carry their prefered endophytes from differing places who will have taken differing evolutionairy routes to become what they are and crossbreed amongst to turbocharge this evolution and recombine into the best it could offer to the corn plant?

This reminds me of using weed tea or compost tea.  Do those also pull out the endophytes in plants?