This is a 100% legit phenomenon. Volunteer plants are typically more robust because out of all the seeds that are scattered, few sprout plants that are robust enough to survive in adverse environments without care. I once saw a corn plant randomly growing in a parking lot outside a movie theater, and my thought was that someone tossed their popcorn onto the ground and one of the unpopped kernels hadn’t been killed by the heat. As a gardener, when I spot a volunteer plant I like to carefully dig it up if I can and plant it in my garden and give it ideal care. These are always my biggest and best producers.
I live close to a sweet corn field, and every off year there are corn stalks that pop up in my yard, I like to let them grow as much as possible. So far none have produced the stereotypical ears of corn, but this year is looking promising. Some stalks are already as tall as I am, like the corn fields around are.
I typically leave plants be, since I’m convinced I’ll kill them just trying to transplant them lol
Corn is much harder to get viable seeds. First off that are wind pollinated so it takes lots of get any diversity. They recommend you have at least 200 stalks before saving and seeds while they say you can save the seeds from your one pumpkin vine.
Also if it’s commercial corn it’s a hybrid from two inbred strains. So this hybrid won’t breed true. You will need an heirloom variety for that. (This is true for almost all commercial plants).
I knew commercial operations use weird corn that didn’t grow right in small quantities, but didn’t know why. That’s interesting!
While this IS a large field, it’s privately owned by someone my parents go to church with, and they go on at length about how you can go straight from stalk to kitchen and save some for planting and blah blah blah. . I’ve always wanted to test that, but so far it’s been “doesn’t grow in small quantities” so I’m starting to think either the church friend is exaggerating, or my mother is filling in gaps that she thinks sound right.
There’s a patch of about 50-100 stalks on the edge of my yard, I’m guessing some spilled when they were harvesting since they drive through that corner to get the semis out.
I actually tried growing store bought seeds last year, but it was a dismal failure. We moved back to this house after a few years away and didn’t get around to setting up a real garden this spring, so it’s laundry-bin potatoes and (fingers crossed) yard corn lmao.
Your corn may need nitrogen to fully grow. Have you considered doing a “3 sisters” garden? The beans and pumpkins will feed the soil with nutrient the corn needs.
I have actually, a few years back. Things grew okay, I think. With my mother’s claim of a native great(x4) grandmother and growing up near a bunch of native American historical areas, I learned about planting methods pretty early, and I’ve tried a few different gardens over the years. I have pretty bad adhd though and it usually doesn’t go well… My longest lived plant was a dracaena marginata that I made the mistake of asking my parents to care for, and returned after 8 months to find out they didn’t water it a single time. I had that thing for over a decade…
There’s a TON of clover in my yard, since I don’t really mow often (if I could, I’d only mow up against the house to keep pests away and leave everything to grow with native plants) and clover seems to pop up everywhere I mow. The wildflowers near the clover all look amazing in spring.
Sorry for rambling a bit, I might be a little toasty.
If it’s a hybrid or commercial seed you can grow small quantities you just can’t get viable growing seeds from those corns. They get inbred and lose all of the good qualities from them.
I spent a bit of time as a commercial plant breeder. Most of the stuff you find online is inaccurate. Genetics and plant breeding is extremely complicated and species specific. It’s not something the average master gardener even has the fundamentals to understand.
For example the answer to your question about saving hybrid corn seed.
One plant of a F1 commercial contains the same heterogenity as a healthy 1,000 plant OP variety population. Commercial hybrids are created by crossing inbreds from separate genetic pools. This helps maintain the required genetic distance between the inbreds to maximize heterosis.
1,000 F2 plants from one F1 is enough to initiate a stable population. Saving less than 1,000 plants on the subsequent generations will create a bottleneck and the population will quickly suffer from inbred depression.
“Heirloom” varieties that are sold are poorly maintained and extensively contaminated (often exceeding 50%). So not stable at all.
In order to properly maintain them you’d need closer to 1,000,000 plants with extensive but careful rogueing over over 30 generations with extensive genetic profiling to clean them up. They are all an absolute mess at this point.
Once you got them cleaned up the same 1,000 plants could maintain the population.
Based on news articles I’ve read in the past, yes.
I want to say it was Monsanto?
If I remember right, Basically they had some crop that was resistant to a specific type of plant killer, some guy killed a bunch of his own plants in order to cherry pick the commercial ones, then the next season he grew a ton of it, and they sued him for it. I think his initial defense was basically “well it was stuff that blew into MY field so it’s fair game” (which I 100% agree with, even if I DID think plants should be patentable)
This is a 100% legit phenomenon. Volunteer plants are typically more robust because out of all the seeds that are scattered, few sprout plants that are robust enough to survive in adverse environments without care. I once saw a corn plant randomly growing in a parking lot outside a movie theater, and my thought was that someone tossed their popcorn onto the ground and one of the unpopped kernels hadn’t been killed by the heat. As a gardener, when I spot a volunteer plant I like to carefully dig it up if I can and plant it in my garden and give it ideal care. These are always my biggest and best producers.
Crazy thought, but does this make Superman a volunteer plant?
I live close to a sweet corn field, and every off year there are corn stalks that pop up in my yard, I like to let them grow as much as possible. So far none have produced the stereotypical ears of corn, but this year is looking promising. Some stalks are already as tall as I am, like the corn fields around are.
I typically leave plants be, since I’m convinced I’ll kill them just trying to transplant them lol
Corn is much harder to get viable seeds. First off that are wind pollinated so it takes lots of get any diversity. They recommend you have at least 200 stalks before saving and seeds while they say you can save the seeds from your one pumpkin vine.
Also if it’s commercial corn it’s a hybrid from two inbred strains. So this hybrid won’t breed true. You will need an heirloom variety for that. (This is true for almost all commercial plants).
That being said you might get something good
I knew commercial operations use weird corn that didn’t grow right in small quantities, but didn’t know why. That’s interesting!
While this IS a large field, it’s privately owned by someone my parents go to church with, and they go on at length about how you can go straight from stalk to kitchen and save some for planting and blah blah blah. . I’ve always wanted to test that, but so far it’s been “doesn’t grow in small quantities” so I’m starting to think either the church friend is exaggerating, or my mother is filling in gaps that she thinks sound right.
There’s a patch of about 50-100 stalks on the edge of my yard, I’m guessing some spilled when they were harvesting since they drive through that corner to get the semis out.
I actually tried growing store bought seeds last year, but it was a dismal failure. We moved back to this house after a few years away and didn’t get around to setting up a real garden this spring, so it’s laundry-bin potatoes and (fingers crossed) yard corn lmao.
Your corn may need nitrogen to fully grow. Have you considered doing a “3 sisters” garden? The beans and pumpkins will feed the soil with nutrient the corn needs.
I have actually, a few years back. Things grew okay, I think. With my mother’s claim of a native great(x4) grandmother and growing up near a bunch of native American historical areas, I learned about planting methods pretty early, and I’ve tried a few different gardens over the years. I have pretty bad adhd though and it usually doesn’t go well… My longest lived plant was a dracaena marginata that I made the mistake of asking my parents to care for, and returned after 8 months to find out they didn’t water it a single time. I had that thing for over a decade…
There’s a TON of clover in my yard, since I don’t really mow often (if I could, I’d only mow up against the house to keep pests away and leave everything to grow with native plants) and clover seems to pop up everywhere I mow. The wildflowers near the clover all look amazing in spring.
Sorry for rambling a bit, I might be a little toasty.
If it’s a hybrid or commercial seed you can grow small quantities you just can’t get viable growing seeds from those corns. They get inbred and lose all of the good qualities from them.
Hopefully your yard corn grows well.
I spent a bit of time as a commercial plant breeder. Most of the stuff you find online is inaccurate. Genetics and plant breeding is extremely complicated and species specific. It’s not something the average master gardener even has the fundamentals to understand.
For example the answer to your question about saving hybrid corn seed.
One plant of a F1 commercial contains the same heterogenity as a healthy 1,000 plant OP variety population. Commercial hybrids are created by crossing inbreds from separate genetic pools. This helps maintain the required genetic distance between the inbreds to maximize heterosis.
1,000 F2 plants from one F1 is enough to initiate a stable population. Saving less than 1,000 plants on the subsequent generations will create a bottleneck and the population will quickly suffer from inbred depression.
Similar to what I said but you need 1000 not a couple hundred. I wonder how stable it is for heirloom varieties.
“Heirloom” varieties that are sold are poorly maintained and extensively contaminated (often exceeding 50%). So not stable at all.
In order to properly maintain them you’d need closer to 1,000,000 plants with extensive but careful rogueing over over 30 generations with extensive genetic profiling to clean them up. They are all an absolute mess at this point.
Once you got them cleaned up the same 1,000 plants could maintain the population.
I guess when I said heirloom varieties I meant those that have been used by indigenous communities for generations.
I wonder if you could get sued for planting patented seeds in this manner.
Based on news articles I’ve read in the past, yes.
I want to say it was Monsanto?
If I remember right, Basically they had some crop that was resistant to a specific type of plant killer, some guy killed a bunch of his own plants in order to cherry pick the commercial ones, then the next season he grew a ton of it, and they sued him for it. I think his initial defense was basically “well it was stuff that blew into MY field so it’s fair game” (which I 100% agree with, even if I DID think plants should be patentable)
Yep self selection bias / survivor bias.