Saving Bloody Butcher Dent Corn For Seed

In THIS POST from about 3 weeks ago, we discussed the method we used for drying and saving our Bloody Butcher Dent (Field) Corn for seed.  We got this heirloom seed at a seed exchange and this corn is primarily used to grind into cornmeal or grits.  How cool would that be to have a warm bowl of pink grits for breakfast?  Well, the amount of seeds given to me was not in an quantity that allowed for eating - this year.

Learning to be patient is a good thing.  Don't they say that good things come to those who wait?  I figured that I would grow the corn for seed this year and next year put in a patch of Bloody Butcher seed corn from our initial crop that I'll use specifically for grinding into corn meal or grits.  I had never saved corn for seed before so it was interesting to learn how to do it.  With our high humidity, I was a little concerned that the seed wouldn't dry, but I took it inside when rain threatened and kept it on the window sill.

Bloody Butcher Seed Corn Drying

You know that the corn is dry when you can pick up the cob in your hand and twist it, and the kernels pop out easily.  Three weeks ago you could not do this, but lo and behold, after leaving them out on the patio in the hot, dry summer air (except on rainy days), they dried quickly - quicker than I thought.  When I passed by the other day and twisted, the corn popped off of the cob easily.

I think this corn is real pretty.  I decided to do a little quality control and I sorted through each and every kernel, inspecting it for damage.  Some of the kernels had bug damage.  I suspect ants had climbed up the stalk and eaten the germ.  The germ is the embryo of the corn kernel, and it is not going to sprout if the germ is gone.  Those kernels that were damaged were discarded into the compost pile, while the good seed was put aside.  I also removed some of the silk that remained mixed with the seed and was left with a nice sampling of seed corn for next year.

I'll put the saved seed into a container that held nutritional supplements and vitamins at one time, and they'll be stored in the container until it is time to plant next year.  I save those little silica gel packets that come in everything from vitamins to shoe boxes and I'll put a couple of those packets in each container of seeds I'm saving.  The packets are used to eliminate moisture and humidity, and I figure it will be very helpful in keeping my seeds in good condition until next Spring.   

Image Credit

I'm pretty pleased with the seeds that we were able to save.  Although the seeds look to be in real good shape, we won't know if our seed saving venture was successful until we put them in the ground next year and see what kind of germination rate we get.

Hopefully, we'll be able to post an entry next summer, showing a nice bowl of pink grits for breakfast, courtesy of Bloody Butcher Heirloom Dent Corn, evidencing the fact that good things do, in fact, come to those who wait.

Drying Bloody Butcher Seed Corn

This year in addition to planting a couple of varieties of heirloom sweet corn we planted a new variety of field corn or dent corn.  Field corn is not as sweet as sweet corn and is primarily used for making cornmeal, grits, flour, or for roasting.  Bloody Butcher Corn has a very colorful name due to the color of the kernels, resembling blood.  In reading about its origins, it came about in the 1800's when corn from the Indians mixed with the early settler's seed corn.

I had obtained the seeds from a seed exchange at a sustainable agriculture conference, so I didn't have very many to plant.  I decided to try growing some and if they produced, I could dry it and save the seed for next year.  I was thinking that it would be really neat to grow plenty of this next year, grind it for corn meal or grits.  It would be pretty cool to have a reddish-pink bowl of grits.  In reading about it, I learned that it has a great corn flavor, not to mention the ornamental aspects.

So rather than picking this corn when it is ripe like we would with sweet corn, we leave this on the stalks to dry.  The stalk will turn brown and die and some of the drying ears will turn downward. The husks serve as a form of protection from the weather and from birds, but when I noticed ants climbing up the stalks, I figured I had better pick them and bring them to the back patio for further drying.

Drying Corn Stalks

I peeled back the husks, removed the silk and placed them on a table on the patio to allow the corn to dry further.  I'm thinking that I'll hang it to let it dry further, but I haven't quite gotten around to that yet.

Getting Bloody Butcher seed corn ready to dry further

The corn is very pretty.  I noticed that I had some damage to some of the kernels from ants, but if I can successfully dry what I have, I'll have enough for a nice inventory of seed corn for next Spring. The photo below shows why its also called dent corn.  Can you see the 'dent' on the top of each kernel?

This corn is nowhere near dry yet.  You are supposed to allow it to dry between 60 and 90 days.  Due to our humidity, I'll likely allow it to dry for at least 90 days and possibly more.

Beautiful red color!

Once the corn is fully dry, if you twist the cob in your hand, the kernels will pop off with ease into a paper bag.  You can then store the seed corn in a jar until it is planting time.  We'll update you in November and report if our Bloody Butcher seed saving experiment was successful or not.

One note: We did eat one cob of Bloody Butcher corn just to see what it tasted like. Obviously, it wasn't sweet, but it had a rich, nice taste to it, and I bet it will make some fantastic tasting grits!