Saving corn, one seed at a time

http://www.sunjournal.com/franklin/story/883283

WILTON — For just a few days last week, when the sun was just up and the dew still wet, Pamela Prodan was out in her corn patch, doing her small part to preserve an heirloom variety that likely was grown in this region by the Abenaki.

For the past decade, in a hobby that has turned into a passion, Prodan has been hand-pollinating non-hybrid corn, using seed saved by four generations of the Mosher family of Wilton.

“This corn is part of the heritage of this region,” she said. “We have to thank the Native Americans for this corn. It is a gift from their culture.”

Prodan and her partner, Conrad Heeschen, save the seeds of many of the crops they grow on their homestead in the fertile Wilton Intervale, a small valley along Wilson Stream in the western mountains.

They grind the heirloom corn, known as Byron Yellow Flint, into meal to use in cooking and feed the dry kernels to their chickens. It is tasty, hardy, disease-resistant, early and vigorous, Prodan said.

In 2008, the strikingly long, straight ears won a Judge's Prize at the Common Ground Country Fair in Unity.

“I am thinking of the future generations," Prodan said. "This is a very valuable corn and it should not be lost.”

One of her goals is to preserve its genetic diversity.

"That is why I hand-pollinate," she said. "Corn is pollinated by the wind and I don't want these plants to become contaminated with any other variety.

"I am just a little link in this chain.”

Prodan follows the process laid out by Susan Ashworth in the hand-pollinator's bible, “Seed to Seed, Seed Saving Techniques for the Vegetable Gardener.”

Hand-pollination is time-consuming but not difficult and is the only way people can maintain the purity of a variety of corn, according to Ashworth.

First, the tip is cut off the husk leaves on a selected immature ear to expose its maturing silks, the female part of the plant. It is then enclosed in a small white “shoot bag” to protect it from any outside pollination.

Next, uncontaminated pollen is collected from the tassel, the male portion of the plant, just as it begins to shed pollen from the top of the plant. It, too, is carefully enclosed in a bag and when ready, the pollen is shaken off.

The pollen, the consistency of a very fine powder, from different plants is mixed together to maintain as much genetic variability as possible, according to Ashworth.

Hand-pollination is the next step.

A small amount of the pollen mix is shaken onto the silks of selected ears. Each pollinated ear is then re-bagged to prevent contamination.

This year, Prodan has between 300 and 400 plants in her sampling. Half were used to provide the pollen; the other half were pollinated.

“That represents a pretty large sampling,” she said.

In March, Prodan presented her seed-saving project at the Maine Organic Farmers and Gardeners Association's Seed & Scion Swap at the Common Ground Education Center in Unity.

Paul Mosher, a retired agronomist and former potato specialist at the University of Maine in Orono, said the corn Prodan is growing is the same used by his father, Clare, and back to his great-grandfather, Horace. It was commonly grown by farmers throughout this region over 150 years ago.

“It was known as Eight-Row Flint corn back then because it has eight rows," Mosher said. "Those that grew it in those days used it as a grain for their cattle and also ground it into meal for cooking. I still grow a few plants every few years just to save the seed.”

Mosher, 92, shared his seed with Will Bonsall of Industry, founder of The Scatterseed Project, a regional seed exchange that maintains more than 3,000 plant varieties, including 1,100 varieties of peas and 650 of potatoes. He sells his seed through the Seed Savers Exchange (www.seedsavers.org).

Prodan got her seed from Bonsall more than 10 years ago.

Bonsall, who researched the variety, found it was similar to other native “flint” corns, recognizable for its long, skinny cobs and grown by Abenaki communities across northern Vermont, New York and western Maine, Prodan said.

Ashworth wrote that the value of heirloom plants is that they are often well-adapted to specific regional climates and resistant to local diseases and pests, in contrast to hybrid varieties.

She also warns of the urgency of rescuing the world's heritage of seed. Old varieties are lost each year, she said, as multinational agribusinesses buy out family-owned seed companies and replace regionally adapted collections with more profitable hybrids and patented varieties. These are more expensive to produce, cost more for the farmer and gardener, and are less disease and pest-resistant than native strains, she said.

“Far from being obsolete or inferior, these may well be the best home garden varieties ever developed," she said. "It is entirely possible that half of the non-hybrid varieties still available from seed companies could be lost during the next decade.”

The largest seed bank in the United States, the Seed Savers Exchange, (www.seedsavers.org), is a nonprofit organization that saves and shares heirloom seeds. Members have distributed an estimated one million samples of rare garden seeds since the group was founded 35 years ago, according to its website.

Those seeds are widely used by seed companies, small farmers supplying local and regional markets, chefs and home gardeners.

“The genetic diversity of the world's food crops is eroding at an unprecedented and accelerating rate," according to seedsavers.org. "The vegetables and fruits currently being lost are the result of thousands of years of adaptation and selection in diverse ecological niches around the world.”