Landrace Gardening: Growing Popcorn

Reader Contribution by Joseph Lofthouse
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Landrace popcorn requires care to preserve and enhance its ability to pop. I imported and planted three popcorns in recent years that had lost their ability to pop well because they had not been maintained in a manner that preserved their popability. In today’s blog I’ll write about my method of selecting for great popping ability. In next week’s blog I’ll write about how to prepare homegrown popcorn for popping.

In the 2009 growing season, I crossed a highly inbred popcorn with a genetically-diverse landrace of non-popping decorative corn. Since that time I have been selecting among the offspring to obtain a genetically-diverse localized landrace of popcorn that tastes great and pops completely. Last week’s post contained a photo showing how well it grows for me.

There are two kinds of starch in popcorn. Clear-looking transparent starch is required for great popping. If the starch is white or milky looking it doesn’t pop well.

Very small kernels don’t produce much volume of popped corn and tend to have a crunchy unpalatable tip. Very large kernels tend to produce old-maids instead of popping. My crossed plants produced many different sizes of kernels. After years of selecting for best popping ability, the kernel size matches very closely to the plain old yellow popcorn sold in the grocery store. They have converged into mid-sized kernels that weigh about 0.18 grams and are about 6 millimeters in diameter.

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