Anyone eating corn for nutrition...be it now or 100 years ago...is "doing nutrition wrong." It's never been a nutrient-dense food as far as vitamins go, though it does have some nutrient quality in the way of carbs and vitamin B. It's a minor, yet noticeable, vitamin A+C contributor to nutrition. Also, the notion that our lines of supersweet corn came from radioactive/mutating experiments is grossly off the mark. Most come from lines of natural selection and breeding by John Laughnan at UI working with a gene most other breeders wouldn't touch. It is a total bastardization of John Laughnan's work (who, unlike what was stated WAS a plant breeder and botanist at U.Illinois) to claim he was by-chance poking around human-mutated "radioactive" corn to make supersweets happen. His work on the sh2 gene is one of the most important breeding pushes in the line of sweet corn. His crossses with Golden Cross Bantam (not to be confused with Golden Bantam which has been around since the early 1900s) for enhanced sweetness are his babies and it was developed with much resistance from his peers because they didn't see the value of the sh2 gene, which usually caused undesirable shrived kernels (because of less starch content and higher sugar content). One of his crosses, Illini Chief, is still sold by Burpee (who developed the initial Golden Bantam, btw), Shumway, and a few other seed sellers over 50 years after it first hit the market. Until his research into this gene it was believed to be a gene that led to inferior product rather than a line worth investigating. When his work led to incorporating the sh2 gene into corn which can produce full/plump kernel cobs, people paid attention. Btw, this was not a 1959 discovery, as stated by the author...he published his initial work on the sh2 gene as a breeding gene worth investigating in 1953 and his work started years earlier. I have no idea where he/she got her information on Dr. Laughnan from, but he/she should check that source again. John Laughnan is a bit of a hero to many in the breeding industry. This kinda pokes me wrong a bit personally to see his name/work trashed like this...and his work cheapened to being some fool who stumbled upon his discovery. It's so off the mark it's insulting. He was far ahead of his time given that supersweets took another 1-2 decades to even become popular in breeding. His work with developing the sh2 gene from a shriveled-kernel "undesirable" gene into a farmer/consumer market changer ranks right up there with Lamborn and Parker's work with the sugar snap pea that led to the "modern" sugar snap we've enjoyed since the 1970s. It was a game changer that went ignored for far too long given the long cultivation history of the plant(s). This post was edited by nc-crn on Sun, May 26, 13 at 20:56

I am wanting to do a trade. I would LOVE to try your: SOLAR FLARE variety and only need about 5 seeds. I have these varieties that I did not notice on your list: Burgess Lemon (only 5 seeds from Wintersown and several years old) Hovarth (only 2 seeds left from Wintersown and several year old) Peacevine Cherry (10 seeds from Kenyon Organics, probably 2 years old) God Love (5 seeds from Kenyon Organics, probably 2 years old) Abe Lincoln (about 10 from Livingston Seed Co, less than year old) San Marzano (about 10 from Organic Ferry-Morse, less that year old) I am rather new to this forum and unsure how to proceed. Is there a way you can message me to exchange addresses? I can send a SASE.

Please use new listin. Thank you. Ron S

We stayed at the Barcelo (The Colonial, not the Beach Club - there are actually 4 Barcelo resorts together) in March. We went for a wedding (so left the kids at home) on this particular trip, but we have stayed at AI resorts with our kids before (they are 11 and nearly 8). Our friends' stayed at the Beach club, and it seemed much busier and noisier than the Colonial. It *was* spring break time though, so perhaps there will not be as many drunken frat boys when you travel, :) Personally, I love travelling to an AI with the kids (we have been to AI's in the Mayan Riveria, Puerto Vallarta and the Dominican Republic; we also have a timeshare condo that is not AI in Mazatlan that we have been to several times). The buffet restaurants always had lots of choices as far as food goes (my son is a picky eater ), with lots of fresh fruit. The beach front buffets tend to carry lots of "American" food (hot dogs, hamburgers etc) that can be a change from the exotic food overload. The fish is always excellent. The entertainment at the Barcelo ranged from hokey-lame to very good. Pick chairs up higher but in the first row for best air circulation and view - it can be really hot sitting with all of those people. There was some noticeable hurricane damage still in evidence on the ride from Cancun to the resort, but the grounds themselves are in quite good condition. When we were there, there was some construction noise as they were rebuilding the pier/headlands. A lot of the actual sand had been blown off the beach, so it was quite rocky in some areas. Bring water shoes or sandals for the beach. There are plenty of chairs everywhere. The 4 resorts together are *enormous* - they must have close to a mile of beachfront, so there is plenty of room to spread out. Personally, I enjoy beach time with a bood and no one bothering me, so it was easy to get lost away from the other people in our group. There were virtually no beach vendors, which I actually kind of miss. I did find the prices for souveneir junk quite high at the resort, and very high on the shopping day we took to Playa Del Carmen. The fancy jewelery factory (don't be fooled by their promises of seeing "jewelery artisans at work" - it is primarily a giant showroom) near the resort actually had not bad prices, but a very small silver selection in comparison to the gold (mucho $$). We probably would not return to this resort again, but only because of the price, as we tend to be three star travellers, LOL. I don't have anything bad to say about the actual resort itself. Carrie