 All right, I wanted to do a quick video about how I'm sorting through my corn and deciding What I want to keep for seed and what is just going to be eaten This is a little bit different than my normal process just because it's Raining now and I had to get everything harvested and under the cover of the barn so Basically, I've got this big pile here Which is all of my rejects there just for food. I won't be saving any seed from them Here's a pile that I'm sorting through Here's stuff. I've decided to keep your seats If you remember from my posts From throughout the season, you know that I was growing my corn in clumps. So what I've done is Here's a pile. Here's a pile. Here's a pile Here's a pile. I just Separate each clump into its own pile and I am selecting the best cobs from each clump The reason why I'm doing that is because It's not really about which cobs are the best overall It's about which cob is the best for each planting position So what happens when I'm growing in a clump is that the ones that can't handle the competition They don't do very well the ones that can't handle the soil nutrients the water level All of the things that might make it difficult for a plant those plants Do worse and they get selected out of the gene pool Why I don't want just the best cobs overall is because I don't know why those cobs didn't do well If there's an entire clump where all of the cobs are kind of meh I know that that's probably for environmental reasons either because they didn't have enough water this Nutrition in that part of the soil just isn't very good So I still want the best cob from that clump. Even if it's not as good as my best cobs Also, I don't want 10 good cobs from one clump if the only reason those cobs are so good is because they had extra water nutrition etc So let's start going through this and I'll kind of show what what I'm looking for So here's one. I know from experience that this red color is Common with This red color is coming from seeds that I got from my friend mark and I want a lot more of these genetics in my gene pool then Are currently in it so even though by itself. This is kind of a small cob one. I wouldn't initially keep I'm gonna put this in my keep Pile because the color indicates to me that it's from mark seed if I open the husk up and I'm wrong and it's actually some of my other seed that is Just resulting in this red color, then I will remove it from the save pile Just because it's not as big as other cobs that I have but for now it's going to my keep pile You got something like this This It tried to make two cobs. I didn't really succeed on this lower one It didn't have enough time to finish it up But it has one really nice looking cob and it tried to make two I typically want to keep ones that produced more than one cob because I want to ultimately get as much production as possible out of each plant so Even though it didn't finish the second cob I Want to assume that in an ideal year these genetics would lead to two or more cobs per stock So I am gonna keep this one as well Here's one There's literally not a cob on it. I don't know if there was too much competition or the cob fell off either way There's nothing to keep from this. So it's just going in the junk pile not even like The junk cob pile is just going in the this is just a stock with nothing on a pile for me to shred later Let's see what else we've got in here This one. This is another one where this is a Fairly good sized cob. I want to keep that some Some piles I do end up keeping more than others. This I know that I'll probably get four or so that I want to keep and it just depends on how many plants there were in That particular clump and what they look like What else we got? All right, so I Was gonna say that this is a reject, but I can feel When I'm pressing on it that it's actually a double cob So it's actually gonna be more productive than one does a single cob I am noticing a lot of these double cobs that I really like because they're neat to look at I'm not sure how well they'll store. So I'm gonna keep them in storage and as long as they don't mold or anything Technically, it's twice the cob of any other cob. I may actually open this up so you can see what I'm talking about Holy shit It's actually a triple cob All in one spot Focus again. It's a triple cob. So even though the individual cobs aren't as big as a Normal cob because there's so much more cob and so many more kernels. It's actually more productive than a single large cob. I Don't know how well it will do in storage because of airflow But I'm gonna put it in storage for seed saving and as long as it doesn't mold over the winter Then I will include this in my seed stock and try to get these that make these Multicob cobs because they just produce more kernels even if they don't look Like you expect corn to look. Here's one teeny tiny little cob. This is It's really hard to do this with one hand, but this is teeny tiny little cob Great for food. I don't want it passing on genetics. So it's gonna go in my reject file Another one small cob this might be one of marks when I go through and pull the husk off all of them If the color indicates that it's one of marks, I will move it into my seed pile But for now it's a small cob not something that I think I want seeds from Move it into the reject pile Here's a really great one That did form two cobs the top cobs really nice the bottom cobs a little bit smaller But it produced to that's something I want to encourage Usually I'd be rejecting more than this, but this one seems to be producing a lot of really worthwhile stuff Here's one where it basically did nothing. There might be a few ladybug in there There might be a few kernels on here that I want to Preserve but probably not so it'll go in the reject pile and I'll toss it later if there's nothing there There's another small one There's another double this is kind of a bad pile to look at because there are actually quite a few that I want Keep let me see if I can find some of the other things that I'm looking for Whether to reject or not Problem is I already did a lot of selection on my corn so it's not as often that I guess stuff that I really don't like But it is in there Here's an example of one that I don't like Notice how the husk isn't super tight What this ends up inviting is it gets rained on there's no husk to protect the corn from getting wet and Either sprouting or molding it's exposed so that animals can see it. This isn't something I want to keep If this was the only decent sized cob in this clump I would keep it just because I still want some genetics from each clump But otherwise this is something I want to avoid keeping seeds from perfectly fine to eat As long as it doesn't get rained on in the field and rot It's perfectly fine to eat. Just not something I want to carry forward in my breeding work One other trait that I really want Show off if I can find another example of it. Throw the camera everywhere Might not actually find a good example of the other thing I want to show Seems like I might have already selected all of those this big pile up here that It's already good stuff that I've sorted so let me see if I can find one in here That looks like one of this trait right here when the cobs get super ripe and drying down The ears tend to flop over and this is great because basically what it does Camera situated you end up creating this a roof. They're basically like a tile roof where You have the ear hanging down and the husk creates this Basically like shingles where the rain when it hits They'll hit and just kind of fall off rather than touching any of the kernels inside So that is a trait that I want to select for just because if I Happen to have a really late crop and it does get rained on it's more likely that it won't mold if It is protected by the husk like this rather than pointing straight up. So that's the other thing I'm looking for and Basically, if you guys have been following my post of stuff, you know that I am working on land race breeding which means I'm Combining a lot of different genetics together and kind of selecting for the qualities I want so It isn't necessarily that all of these things are what my population is going to look like Years from now, but these are kind of the things that I'm Selecting as the foundation for my breeding work and You'll see more and more of those traits as the population develops over the years So I'm not worried about getting the best yield from each cob at this moment I'm thinking long-term about what traits I want to have in my population and those traits will combine over time. So Even if I have Three small cobs that I'll form in one spot That aren't as big as a large cob if those genetics mix so I have large cobs intermixing with these multi cob cobs Ultimately what I would expect to see if those genetics are compatible is that I'll have these two or three cob cobs that are actually much larger and that's basically How I'm deciding what to keep versus what I'm not and obviously this is all good corn The cobs aren't as pretty the plants don't have the genetics. I'm looking for but I'm gonna eat all this This isn't waste Then go over here. I don't really relate to selection, but Here are all of the stocks that I've already Processed no cobs left on these. I'm waiting for these to dry up So I can run them through this little electric chipper to create this mulch that I can add back to the garden See over here This is a great mulch. The only problem I've had is this little electric chipper cannot Really pump out the stocks With the amount of moisture that they've had in them when I've tried running it through Eventually just creates a mass that clogs up the ejection chute So I'm gonna let these sit for quite a while and dry out and then see how the chipper does with them But otherwise I really like this mulch and I'm happy to get a bunch of it on the garden That's all for now. Hope you guys have a good one