Does Anyone Have Experience Landracing Popcorn?

Looking for tips tricks warnings and advisories on the subject.   Are there some varieties more susceptible to crossing with the GMO all around my maybe quarter acre plot? Plan on saving for yield above all.  Are there some varieties I should exclude?

Popcorn felt difficult as a landrace breeding project, because of the narrow phenotype that pops well.

Cj,

My family has grown a handful of varieties of popcorn over the years, but I've not tried landracing it yet since I'm already working on other corn types.  There are others that have attempted it, some have had success, and some are still working on perfecting it.  

I do know however, that among "popcorns", there are a handful of different kernel types (shapes/sizes), cob lengths, even cob shapes that can influence your outcome.  While any mix you include can still make popcorn, you may run into issues with uniformity at first, which affects internal moisture levels & drying times, which can then affect the quality of popcorn you produce.  For example, in a given batch of popcorn, some kernals won't pop, some will pop perfectly, & some will burn.  Eventually, after your selections begin producing more uniform kernels, I'd suspect you'll find your popcorn working out perfectly.  Good luck & post your findings!

Cy, glad you mentioned that.  Popping is honestly not that big of a factor for me.  My main goal is to grow as much corn that won't cross with GMO (the real "frankenfood").   Making cornbread and feeding chickens suits me just fine.   Do you have any high yield recommendations since you have been at it awhile?  

Cj,

All corn is wind pollinated, thus susceptible to cross pollination by any commercial field corn growing near you.  It doesn't matter if you grow popcorn, sweet corn, dent corn, or flint corn.  It's all wind pollinated.

I'm honestly just beginning my foray into "field" corn, but for your intended purposes, I'd suggest a white dent corn such as Hickory King White.  That's one variety I'm growing next year myself.  

I chose this variety for a couple reasons:  

First, it's a white corn which means if any pollen blows over from the neighboring yellow dent corn fields, those kernels will be yellow & not white, easily identifying the outside pollinated kernels.  Then you can do whatever you want with them.

Second, if you get the old style 8-row Hickory King White, you'll have yourself a very large kernel for making hominy or corn nuts.

Third, this is a great corn for grinding into corn meal, grits, or corn flour.  The byproduct of grinding this is called "chicken scratch" which is basically the larger bits of corn shell to give to your chickens after you grind a batch.

Lastly, you can feed your chickens "cracked corn" to make it more digestible for them.  That's what all the old-timers did in my area.

Cy, check this out:

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9718820/

I'm also planning to grow Ohio Blue and in that case I can discard yellow kernels, but how do you know it's 100% not crossed just by color?  

New stuff being discovered all the time!
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Well, what makes corn unique is that the kernels exhibit physical characteristics from the pollen donor upon fertilization.  Meaning, if I grow sweet corn near field corn, and some of the field corn pollen get onto the sweet corn silks, it'll fertilize the kernel.  That's pretty obvious right, but if it's a yellow sweet corn or bi-color sweet corn (yellow & white) how would you know which kernels are outcrossed vs pollinated by sweet corn?  If you eat it as sweet corn, you'll never know, nor will it matter.  However, if you're saving seed for sweet corn, you'll let your chosen ears dry.  At that time, it's very clear which kernels are sweet as they'll be wrinkled & shriveled in appearance (high sugar/less starch).  The kernels pollinated by field corn will be hard rounded kernels.

From what I understand about color:  If you start with a known all white corn variety, any other colored corn that pollinates the white corn will exhibit the color of the pollinator over the white background.  I forget where I read it, but I think there are like 4 different pathways for corn color to express itself, but I don't want to misinform you since I can't remember where I read it.  I know from my own corn projects, that anything not-white crossed onto white corn shows up as colored kernels.  This is really only reliable when first starting a cross, not for long term selection I'd think.

If you're talking about being able to differentiate which kernels of Ohio blue were pollinated by commercial field corn (yellow or white), I don't believe you'll be able to tell visually since it will register as shades of blue.  The white or yellow base colors may not show through.  Chances are very strong that any Ohio blue you buy will likely already have been intermingled with other commercial field corns since it's used in all of the same commercial applications, just the blue color lends itself to nice fancy tortilla chips.  

Good luck with whichever direction you want to go, lots of options & all of them are personal choice.

Cy,    I recall trying some 'Trucker's Delight' from this company that appears to have some pretty interesting old maize varieties...and may have some materials to add to a landracing project.  Good luck!

https://victoryseeds.com/collections/dent-corn

Cy, that was very informative, you have been very helpful and I thank you kindly!

John, I checked out the link you provided.  Thank you.  I already have some of them to incorporate (Truckers favorite yellow, Hickory King White, Oaxacan Green Dent, Hopi Blue (Flint), & Earth Tones).  I also have a few other very old types that I'm planning to incorporate as well.  Just coming up with my planting strategy, but I keep changing it, lol.  Regardless, I'll be growing "field" corn in the spring.

Cj, I'm happy to help where I can.  As I said, there's lots of people with many more years of experience than me, and it seems we all do it just slightly differently depending on out own factors/goals.

I have to second Cy Cobb on this. Any corn will cross pollinate. Common suggestion is to be at least a few hundred yards away for any other corn, but research has shown pollen will get blown miles in the wind.

One work-around is to plant early, short season varieties. They will mature and pollinate long before the GMO field corn is pollinating, so your risk for crossing is mostly eliminated.

Color is only one indicator though. Also, look at kernel shape. Pop corn looks distinctly different from field corn. Just be careful not to plant the off-shaped kernels. If you match color and shape and maturity, you should be nearly 100% eliminating cross pollination.

Some sweet corn is GMO too, so keep that in mind. I grow my own sweet corn and field corn, saving seeds. But I have no isolation, so I am sure, 100% sure, it has crossed with neighboring field corn and probably GMO corn. Field corn is >90% GMO now.

https://www.fda.gov/food/agricultural-biotechnology/gmo-crops-animal-food-and-beyond

Cy Cobb wrote:........ Hopi Blue (Flint), & Earth Tones).  I also have a few other very old types that I'm planning to incorporate as well.

Sorry.....this just had me chuckling.. lol    "Hopi Blue and The Earthtones" just sounds like the name of a a bumpin' R&B band!

Okay, so, I have a crazy idea regarding how to keep your corn landrace uncontaminated by commercial corn. I have no idea if it would work, and it would involve playing with chemicals a bit, so take the idea with a couple fistfuls of salt. What if you shifted your corn population over to tetraploids? That way, any cross with commercial corn would result in a triploid plant, which would likely be sterile (unless it started making unreduced gametes...) But yeah, it would involving messing around with colchicine or similar nasty stuff, and it would make it harder to intentionally introduce new genetics to your population.