MONTANA MORADO MAIZE (90-100 days)
Zea mays
Seed We Need ™ <<...>> <<...>> <<...>> <<...>> This striking black corn flour corn is an elite super food with extraordinarily high levels of anthocyanins, pigments which may act as an anti-oxidant and anti-inflammatory for health & healing. Its astonishingly soft flour starch is preferred for countless food purposes, grinds easily to make the best cornbread and tortillas! Very fast maturing plants are easy to grow, about 5 feet tall. They yield long, slender ears with 8 uniform rows of shiny black kernels. Food security for climate change. Created in short-seasoned, climate-stressed Montana, this efficient, hardy corn matures quickly. This naturally diverse open-pollinated corn population is capable of adapting to different locations & you can grow it year after year. The purple and black Morado corns of Peru have attracted international interest in the medical community which found that the pigment (anthocyanins) have antioxidant and anti-inflammatory properties for human health and healing. They help remove toxins and stop the aging of cells. They have healing properties for a long list of diseases. For people who get no fresh fruits nor veggies for 8 months of the year, pigmented corn is their only source of these anthocyanins. Black corn has been tested to show 10 times the antioxidant power as blue, which itself is very high. The darker the better. Heal yourself with food! Before the healing value of corn pigments was ever discovered, Dave, led by a vision, began selecting for a black corn out of his Painted Mtn. population. Then 35 years ago Dave found a gene for black kernels in Navajo Indian Corn which he bred into his population to create a separate strain, Montana Morado Maize (MMM). It turns out that this Navajo black corn has a unique second layer of pigment (aleurone as well as pericarp), found nowhere else in the world. As expected Dave’s MMM tested significantly higher for antioxidant capacity than the popular Morado corns from Peru, or any Morado corns with ancestry from South America. MMM has 100% Native North American ancestry. A Navajo elder told Dave that “Black is for healing”. They knew it before we did! MMM is very similar to Painted Mountain Corn. It grows about the same but with a little higher percent of plants that are larger, stronger and therefore a little slower to mature. This corn is the product of 35 years of careful breeding to select for as many multiple pigment boosting genes as possible before releasing it to the world. This project has been highly publicized as people have watched it’s progress and awaited it’s release. It matures to dry grain in 110 days in Montana. (See the separate discussion about misleading labeling). ~100 kernels/oz, same as Painted Mtn. Corn. Like Painted Mtn, all Dave's lines of corn are genetically diverse composites, NOT hybrids. All are open pollinated populations designed so that the growers can maintain them forever. You can select those that adapt best to your environment and start your own population. However Dave does advance them every year through rigorous selection and breeding. Each new year you can expect the nutrition, beauty and plant structure to advance. So there will be benefits to buying new seed. All Dave’s lines are organic and non-GMO. They were created by natural, traditional breeding methods. All have been grown long distances away from other corn pollen contamination. Dave has tested them yearly to prove that there is no GMO contamination. Dave gives thanks to his 20-year partner, organic farmer Ole Norgaard of North Frontier Farms in pristine Shonkin, Montana, at the foot of the Highwood Mountains, the only place in the world where MMM is raised. It will do best if planted by May 15 no matter how cold it is. Put it right into the cold soil. It will sit there until it warms up. If it frosts, the corn will recover from frosts. DCF.
Packet = 1 oz 1/4 lb 1/2 lb
CORN - Zea mays
Growing Tips: Plant corn by direct seeding 1-2” deep after soil has warmed to at least 70° (Triple Play, Painted Hills Sweet & Hooker’s are specifically adapted to cool soil planting so can be planted earlier in the season). You can also transplant corn for earlier crops, but you have to baby them a bit.
Plant Spacing: Seed 6-10 per foot and thin to 1 plant per 8-12”, rows should be 24-36” apart. Hill method: Plant 5-10 seeds 1-2” deep in a mound, which should be 4-5 feet apart. Grow squash in-between and plant pole beans in mound once corn has emerged. Works better with flour corn and popcorn as it becomes somewhat jungle-like to harvest sweet corn with this method.
Pests: Protect young seedlings from bird predation with floating row covers. A common novice gardener problem is to assume that their corn didn’t come up; when in actuality birds such as jays, robins and crows were digging and pulling up the young sprouts. Scarecrows, floating eye balloons and reflective tape are somewhat effective. Dogs are good, too. Corn earworms (which are actually the caterpillar stage of a moth) can be controlled by spraying Bt. (Dipel™ is a brand name of OMRI certified organic control). Or just bear with their minor inconvenience by chopping the tips off of infected ears.
Harvest: Sweet corn when it’s in the “milk” stage, which you can determine by finding an ear whose silks have dried, gently peeling back some leaves while the ear is still on the plant, then nicking a kernel and looking for milky liquid to ooze out. Clear fluid indicates that it is too early, no liquid – you’re too late, save for seed or flour corn. Raccoons can devastate a corn crop if they find it appealing. Some folks put a battery powered radio in their patch to provide a menacing noise deterrent to keep coons at bay.
Diseases: We have not experienced any significant diseases here in Oregon, but my counsel would be ample fertility from well-matured compost and foliar sprays of compost tea, fish emulsion and kelp when plants are young if you do experience yellowing or die back.
Seed Specs: Sweet: 125-225 seeds per/oz.; Popcorn: 250-300 seeds/oz.
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