Native Corn

Buck · Dec 21, 2001

I've heard that some outfit offers corn seed, sunflowers, grasses that are native to North America. Anybody know the website?

Anybody ever grow it?

Buck

RobS · Dec 21, 2001

Not sure about the corn, but prairienursery sells the grasses and wildflowers /w3tcompact/icons/smile.gif

Egon · Dec 21, 2001

Buck:
Search for long grass and short grass prairie for native grasses and flowers. Maybe try a search for heirloom seeds for the corn. There are lots of suppliers.
I have bought prairie seeds from two sources and have a little plot growing. Next summer should tell how well it's doing. There are hopes of getting at least 3/4 acres of native grasses as time and money allows.
I purchased over the internet but have not kept tract of the websites. The printed information is out in the camper but its cold out and I'll not venture forth till I've had more coffee.
Egon

Buck · Dec 21, 2001

Egon,

I tried searching using google. Couldn't find the corn but found the grasses. Your message however, triggered the key I needed. My friend mentioned heirloomseeds.com. For the life of me, I couldn't remember the URL. The key was the use of the word heirloom. Thanks!

TerryinMD · Dec 21, 2001

Buck,

You can try this link Seeds of Change.

They're mainly an organic supplier and go after some heirloom seeds.

Here is a trick you can use for searching. Go to Yahoo and type the following in the search box. +heirloom+seed

What the + signs do for you is to narrow the search to heirloom seed. Quite a few sites will be returned to you.

Have at it and good luck.

Terry

antiques · Dec 21, 2001

Well, my wife just took a list from a magazine, and it has heirloomseeds.com, plus a few others: The Heirloom Seed Project at wwwlandisvalleymuseum.com (I don't know if this is tied in with heirloomseeds.com); Plimoth Plantation in Massachusetts: www.plimoth.com; Seed Savers Exchange at www.seedsavers.com; Old Sturbridge Village at www.osvgifts.com; and www.monticello.com, the Thomas Jefferson Center for Historic Plants. Also know of Johhny's Seeds in Albion, Maine, at www.johnnyseeds.com. There was also a woman featured in a story at the Case-IH web site earlier this year, but the web site is different now and the story is gone.... good luck! Bill

Egon · Dec 22, 2001

Buck
Let us know what the results are when that time arrives.
Egon

EdDekker · Dec 25, 2001

Corn was derived from Teosinte, a grass native to Mexico. Teosinte is nothing like the modern corn plant. http://www.nativetech.org/cornhusk/cornhusk.html has a small drawing showing the Teosinte plant compared to an Early cultivated Maize plant.

An interesting history of corn is http://www.ksgrains.com/corn/history.html

I don't know of any suppliers of Teosinte seeds. The suppliers already mentioned in this thread will have many variations of corn including Mize (partway between Teosinte and modern corn)

Ed

jyoutz · Dec 26, 2001

I know of one organization that offers seeds native to the Southwest US. They offer seeds from the local Indian tribes that have been grown in this region for centuries. I know they have Hopi corn. I don't have a website, but the name of this organization is Native Seeds Search. They are located in Tucson, Arizona.