Pretty cool. Who is Petoseed?

little_minnie "Pretty cool. Who is Petoseed?

try doing google search the answer can be found in 2 sec.

I put this up as FarmerDill said there was hybrid Country Gemtlmen corn which I found out is what Early Cogent, and some others are.

How do they cross it without loosing the shoe-peg style, or better what do they cross it with.

There are very few corns, that I know of, that are even close to shoe-peg style.

Early Cogent is listed as a Golden Cross type, but some others are listed as Cogent type.

You are correct Greatcob but it is one of the types where you get dozens of links but useful pages can be counted on one hand and come up with change.

This post was edited by RpR_ on Sat, Dec 15, 12 at 23:12

Petoseed used to be an independent company (started by an ex-Burpee employee), then bought by the "Ball family" (Burpee, etc), and is now a Seminis company since the mid-1990s (which was later bought by Monsanto).

Fwiw, Seminis was nothing more than an investment portfolio of a bunch of bought-out smaller breeding companies by a Mexican investment banker/entrepreneur. Asgrow was one of the companies they swallowed up if anyone remembers them...or their sign on corn fields...though these days the brand that's in existence is better known for soy beans.

Woo...the business of seeds and branding.

This post was edited by nc-crn on Sat, Dec 15, 12 at 23:50

There are a number of shoepeg types. Country Gentleman and Howling Mob being two that still available. Of cross the cross does not have to be a shoepeg type only one that lets the shoepeg design come through. There was a need for hybrids as there is a market for processed corn of this type. It will rarely show up in your seed catalogs as it is a processor variety grown for commercial cannerys.

Here is a link that might be useful: canned shoepeg

I worked at Green Giant one summer.
I got to crawl inside the ovens (I forget if that was their real name) and clean them with a high-pressure gun a few inches from my face.

I am six feet tall so that was an interesting ordeal.

The South American guy who created Petoseed was really sharp, and his people did a lot of invaluable work gathering genetic resources for ancestral South American crops like peppers and tomatoes. Twenty-five years ago, Park Seeds carried many Peto varieties and was an industry leader, in large part because the varieties were so darn good. Too bad Monsanto has them now. Oh, well, these days there are varieties from other breeders that are just as good.

imo, the "Ball family" has done just as much harm as Monsanto as far as variety of selection of types go.

Setting aside the issue of any Monsanto owned division, even if they have nothing to do with GMO, will trickle money into the parent company...there's a lot of varieties/cultivars of plants that get set by the wayside when one of these larger companies swallow up a smaller company.

When the Ball family bought Heronswood the amount of variety produced by them was severely slashed...mostly keeping the best selling and most "interesting" varieties rather than keeping the Heronswood diversity of supply.

It's a shame, but it happens. Luckily, it opens up opportunity for other companies even if there's a time lag of getting stuff back on the market.

For commercial seed development, there are few small companies left. Mesa Maize which specialized in sweet corn has been folded into Harris Moran which is in turn owned by the French conglomerate Vilmorin. D. Palmer is not small, but is still an independent US company. The Chinese company Known-You is relatively small and produces varieties that frequently end up in the home garden market. The Japanese based companies Sakata , Tokita, Takii. Syngenta, Bejo, Nunhems, Enza Zaden are European companys active world wide. You will find quite a few Israeli varieties in the Americas, primarily from Hazera and Zeraim Gedera. In addition to D. Palmer, US companies that are still independent as far as I know are Hollar, Abbot & Cobb, BHN, Golden Valley. There are quite a few Chinese companies ready to jump into the market, but but other than Asian specialties I have not noted a major presence. That is also true of the giant Thai company Chia tai and the big Indian company Mahyco.

How many of the seed catalogs now arriving in the mail, are separate companies and how many are like the old, still missed Gurneys, that are just part of a conglomeration?

Depends. Most of you are getting catalogs from retail vendors. Some of them are part of a large group, but not a major international company. Most of the "heirloom" companies are small operations. Baker Creek is probably the largest ( Abundant Acres, Comstock, Ferre & Co). Jungs (HPS, Shumway, Seymours, Totally Tomatoes, Vermont Bean). Garden's Alive ( Henry Fields, Gurney,Thompson and morgan US).Many companies have one or two affiliates (Parks has many) but are specialty companies rather competitors in the retail seed business.