A Close Call at the farm

[Timothy Mulligan]

Couple of years ago we had 3 acres over at the McClintock Meadows. There we grow strictly screening fields, we do not do crossing. Here Marja Timmermans found a new allele to a particular plant that she was working with and she managed to get crosses and selfs on these. There were 20 in twenty thousands plants. We took duct tape and we closed the bags up because the crows can open up the bags and eat the ears. Then we taped these plants to bamboo poles so they couldn't be pulled over by raccoons. We put bird netting over them and waited out the rest of the summer. She got what she wanted so it was a success story. But nature can throw a curveball even if you do everything right, a problem can still occur. If a raccoon decides that that plant is lunch he pulls the plant down and then pulls the ear off and takes one bite and walks away and then the whole plant is dead and the ear is useless. So our strategy is to put sweet corn along the perimeter of the field and they eat the sweet corn and leave the research corn but that does not work that well. It keeps them out in the beginning but once the sweet corn goes past its prime they look for the research corn. But whatever sweet corn the animals don't get I make into a killer corn chowder.