Landmark
Crop: Corn (Zea Mays)
Use/Type: Flint
Breeder: Carol Deppe Fertile Valley Seeds
OSSI Pledge Date: 10/13/2016
Release Date: January 2017
Bred for Organic Systems: Yes
Commercial Availability: Yes
Variety Type: Finished Variety
Description
Bred for organics. USDA certified organic seed. It takes a high-producing full-season corn to get the maximum productivity per amount of land or labor. In addition, you need a sturdy full-season corn to grow pole beans on. I crossed Cascade Ruby-Gold flint, which is very early, to Longfellow, the classic highest yielding late heirloom 8-row yellow flint. Then I grew the F1 out to produce the F2 seed, which is what I’m selling. The idea is to distribute this F2 material far and wide and let every farm use it to develop a full-season high-yielding full-flavored flint corn variety of their own that is exactly adapted to their own climate, soil, needs, and growing methods. The ears of Landmark are red-brown, red, orange, or yellow. (Each ear is solid colored.) Interior color is deep orange. Good sized ears. 8 to 12 rows. Spectacular flavor in cornbread or johnnycakes. Excellent for polenta. (See recipes in The Resilient Gardener.) I am selling Landmark in 1-pound amounts only, because I do not recommend trying to plant just a small patch. I expect the F2 plants to vary in maturity widely enough so that ear fill would be a problem in a small patch. Suggestion: The first year, start out selecting the plants that have the maturity you would like. Note that you can plant at 8” in the row and select for what produces the biggest single ear under such conditions. Or give the plants more space and select for plants that produce multiple large ears. Or if you really care primarily about support for pole beans, you might try planting several seeds in hills spaced 6 feet apart in all directions, thin to the best 3 corn plants, then when corn is 4 inches high, plant the pole beans in between the hills in one direction; then select the corn plants that produce multiple big ears per plant under these conditions. Bred by Carol Deppe
Availability from OSSI Seed Company Partners
