Astronomy Domine

Astronomy Domine is a modern landrace originally created around 2006 in Indiana (USA) by Alan Bishop. It was later picked up by Joseph Lofthouse (Utah, USA) who improved on it further.

It is a very old style variety not focused on high sugar levels like modern sweetcorn. Instead it is savoury, beautifully multicoloured and has various sizes and shapes of the cobs.

The kernels are firm and have a “starchiness” to them that we found pleasant, savoury, dense and quite filling. It is easy to see how this variety may be excellent for drying and use in cooking, i.e. similar to how Native American nations used maize. However, it is also nice to eat as a fresh boiled cob.

Astronomy Domine is known for being both cold hardy and resilient.

Some additional information
Alan Bishop crossed 100+ maize varieties to create a new landrace with a broad genetic heritage. He used rare Native American heirlooms as well as other varieties of interest to create this new old style variety. You could say it is a kind of living library of old genetic expressions. Here is an old blog post where he talks about it.

Joseph Lofthouse was originally struggling to run a market garden in a cold mountain valley in Utah (USA). The climate was too challenging for most varieties. However, when he tried Astronomy Domine he was so pleased that he converted all of his garden efforts in to create modern landraces. Here is an old blog post where he talks about it and here is a link to the book he wrote about landrace gardening.

Landraces typically have a very broad genetic setup. The general idea is that in a diverse population there will always be some genetic expressions that suits each growing condition better than others.