(Zea mays); Heritage; an Indiana Connection cultivar; 120 days
Johnny Dewlen Blue Dent Corn – so why is it in our inventory? Call it fate working in a serendipitous way.
Dent corns are great pantry staples – typically ground for cornmeal though also used in syrup or for oil and as livestock feed. It's blue, need I say more? And! Here is the “magic of seeds” connection - it originates in the same county as my Grandfather's family – Fountain County, Indiana. Being Hoosiers ourselves (as in the state, not the school =P) of course it made our variety trial.
Described as a selection made over many seasons by Tom Dewlen of Medaryville (Scott's family is up in that part of the state), and from poking around the web, it appears the variety is the namesake of John Maurice "Johnny" Dewlen who was husband to Covington's Naomi Evelyn (Barr) Ritenour Dewlen who passed away at 98 in December 2020. The couple met at Paxton's Drugstore in Covington, and become betrothed on their first “real” date, celebrating their union in March of 1958.
Our seed stock sown was selected based on a uniform blue/purple color with a firm dent. We anticipate up to 2 ears on 10 to 12 foot stalks having the blue purple color shown in the photo. At present, the plants are producing this range of colors:
We are actively working to eliminate the blue/white of the top two ears which appeared in ~1% of our harvest. This may take several years. Pretty as they are for decoration, they are not the intent. Although cross-pollination does appear in the first generation (in this case, kernels are white), since we only planted blue kernels, this photo reinforces the fact that contamination can remain masked (we've already accounted for potential cross-pollination in this season.) Seed stock sold is hand-selected from the center of a pure blue cob and is only of kernels that visually meet our requirement of a strong dent and solid blue color.
We've been asked about growing Ohio Blue Clarage Dent but have decided to focus on Johnny Dewlen Blue Dent with its Fountain County connection.
