It's true: We’re crazy for heirloom corn.
Whether for fresh eating, flour, meal, or popcorn, there is an heirloom corn variety for every taste. Heirloom corn is the antithesis of the monocultured GMO corn constituting more than 90 percent of corn raised in the U.S. each year.
Corn is dazzlingly diverse; there are thousands of varieties around the world, and talented open-pollinated breeders such as Ed Schultz continue to explore its genetic possibilities.
Northern Lights Corn
We are so pleased to offer Ed Schultz' beautiful Northern Lights corn.
Each ear of Northern Lights is like a watercolor masterpiece, with kernels in an awe-inspiring, artful palette of colors. Ed began work on this variety decades ago, using a mix of flint and flour corns in white, yellow, lavender, and blue. Just as he was ready to release it, a multicolored corn created by Oklahoma breeder Carl Barnes hit the market in 2010.
So, Ed says he decided to let Barnes’ Glass Gem corn have the spotlight, and “maybe it’s my turn now.”
Ed thinks the variety contains a color enhancer gene that makes the kernels extra brilliant.
“The flint (corn) colors – like Glass Gem, for example – have that shiny look, but this one has both shiny and more opaque colors. That way if there’s one blue color there, there might be six or eight shades of blue,” he said.
Ed farms in the high-altitude climate of Bozeman, Montana, at an elevation of 5,000 feet. Most corn varieties, he says, don’t like the cold overnight temperatures of summer (often around 40 F) or the short growing season. But Ed persisted in his breeding work, and after all those years he has created a stable line that is one of the earliest and most beautiful corn varieties there is. The six- to eight-inch ears mature on four- to five-foot stalks, and like all his corn varieties, it stands up to cold soil and short seasons!
“This is a labor of love I have,” Ed said. “I worked on it for 37 years. You don’t do it for the money. You do it because you love it. It’s my gift to the world.”
Striped Japonica Corn
At first glance, it would be easy to mistake a leaf of Striped Japonica corn for a tapestry. But the striking variegated leaves are just a small part of this edible ornamental’s charm.
The Portuguese introduced flint corn to Japan in the late 16th century, but it remained relatively obscure. For religious and social reasons, Japan had developed a rich vegetarian tradition known Syojin Ryori. It spread as Zen Buddhism gained popularity beginning in the late 12th century. Flint corn was for animals, not for people, and even though law forbade it, some Japanese still raised and ate meat.
Corn didn’t begin to turn up in Japanese fields much until the Meiji period of the late 19th and early 20th century, a time of modernization after Japan had reopened trade with the west. In 1872, Emperor Meiji ate meat for his New Year’s meal, giving the rest of the country permission to follow suit.
With American help, the northern island of Hokkaido became an agricultural laboratory of sorts for raising corn and livestock. And along the way, Japanese discovered that corn had tasty uses beyond animal feed. Striped Japonica was developed during this resurgence of interest in corn in Japan.
This variety, also known as Zea mays japonica, came to the U.S. by way of an American diplomat named Thomas Hogg Jr. In 1864, he sent the seeds to his brother, James, a wealthy horticulturalist in New York. The Hoggs built an impressive collection of Japanese and Asiatic plants. But it was nurseryman S.B. Parsons who found a way to get them to the public.
Not everything Hogg collected is so beautiful as Striped Japonica — he also imported such infamous invasive plants as Japanese honeysuckle and kudzu, the scourge of the American South.
The Dexter Snow catalog of Springfield, Massachusetts, was one of the first American seed distributors to offer Striped Japonica in 1866. Others followed: the New York seed houses J.M. Thorburn and Alfred Bridgeman in 1868.
B.K. Bliss’ 1871 catalogue called it “another splendid novelty from Japan,” saying “Nothing in the way of a foliage plant can exceed in gracefulness and beauty.”
This Japanese corn rode a wave of popularity for its striking resemblance to the Arunda donax variegata, an expensive and finicky giant reed grass used in landscape gardens. In her 1870 book, New and Rare Beautiful-Leaved Plants, Shirley Hibberd called it “the best poor-man’s sub-tropical plant in cultivation.”
Striped Japonica was embraced for its beauty, but the crimson-black kernels, high in anthocyanins — an antioxidant — also make a fine meal when they are dried and ground. The plants with their wine-colored tassels can grow 6 feet tall.
Pollen drift from GMO corn made it very challenging to find a pure strain of this heirloom variety, but after years of searching, Baker Creek is pleased to offer you this stunning treasure from historic Japan.
Astronomy Domine Corn
Looking for a colorful sweet corn with an awesome back story? Astronomy Domine is a colorful sweet corn with an awesome back story.
At his farm in southern Indiana, breeder Alan Bishop crossed several sweet corn cultivars and mass selected for color and flavor. This robust, easy-to-grow strain matures consistently at mid-season, making it suitable for shorter growing seasons. Other breeders and growers, including landrace gardener Joseph Lofthouse, worked with Bishop’s corn. Joseph says their goal was to “develop the most nutritious and diverse open-pollinated sweet corn ever.”
Mission accomplished!
Damaun KS Sweet Corn
Damaun KS is a breakthrough open-pollinated sweet corn developed by Friedemann Ebner, formerly the head of breeding at Sativa Rheinau, a biodynamic and organic seed company in Switzerland. In 2004, Ebner started dehybridizing an extra-sweet corn variety nicknamed ‘one day corn,’ because got starchy if not consumed within a day of picking it. Within 10 years, Sativa had developed an open-pollinated sweet corn that yielded nearly as well as its hybrid ancestors and could keep for up to 10 days. Damaun KS is one of these varieties. It offers true old-fashioned sweet corn flavor, with seeds that can be saved and grown year after year.
Osage Brown Corn
The history of heirloom corn varieties cannot be separated from the history of the indigenous tribes that developed and adapted varieties for their own tastes and needs. In doing so, they created a phenomenal diversity of landrace corns, adapted to local growing conditions and climates. 
Osage Brown is a beautiful flour corn stewarded by the Osage Nation, a Dhegiha Siouan language speaking tribe that farmed in the river valleys of the Ozarks.
Osage Brown is also known as Fairfax Brown, named for a town on the Osage reservation in Oklahoma, and it was among the Native corn varieties breeder Carl Barnes used to create his celebrated Glass Gem corn.
The plants reach 4 to 6 feet tall and bear 1 or 2 ears. It is perfect for grinding into meal or flour, and it makes beautiful baked goods!
Bonus recipe!
Osage Brown Corn Muffins
Makes 12 muffins
Ingredients:
1 ½ c. cornmeal
1 ½ c. flour
½ t. salt
1 heaping T. baking powder
½ c. agave nectar
½ c. neutral oil or coconut oil
13.5 oz. coconut milk
Instructions:
Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
Mix cornmeal, flour, salt, and baking powder in a large bowl.
Add agave nectar, oil, and coconut milk to the bowl and whisk until well combined.
Put mixture into a muffin pan lined with paper muffin cups.
Bake at 350 F for about 15 minutes.
Key Takeaways
- Heirloom corn is incredibly diverse!
- The history of heirloom and open-pollinated corn varieties cannot be separated from the history of indigenous farming and agriculture in which corn played such an enormous role.
- The Portuguese introduced corn to Japan in the 16th century, but it was used almost exclusively as animal fodder until the Meiji period.
- Corn breeder Ed Schultz spent nearly 40 years perfecting his Northern Lights corn variety.
About the Author
Michelle Johnson is a nationally award-winning writer and editor and Baker Creek's unofficial seed historian.
