and after discussing the Just Really Big Corn more with the person in question, I have some more information about the offending Really Big Corn (the pic is coming up dont worry):
-for those who are new to Exactly How Fucked Up Corn Is, corn, or Zea mays, is comprised of many varieties (called ‘landraces’) native to central and south america. They were first bred by the native peoples in the region from an ancient grass called Teosinte that’s still around today. theyre really fucked up. i cant talk about it here but trust me there’s a reason some people devote their entire lives to studying it
-the lab in question is a maize genomics lab, and does a lot of work with these landraces. sometimes this work involves bringing various kinds up to their lab at my university in Iowa to grow in test plots for experiments. you can see where this is going
-so the supercorn itself. the supercorn in question is actually a collection of a few different landraces from the valleys of mexico and south america. they are naturally taller than what we would consider ‘normal’ corn in their native environment, but like corn generally is when brought to Iowa, they’re really fucking happy here and are a little bit taller than their natural height to show for it (we get longer days here then they get where they’re from, resulting in the plant getting slightly different growth signals, so on so forth)
-i got the height wrong in the tags on the original post. my friend is 5 foot 7, not 5 foot 5. this corn is over 20 feet (6 meters) tall. they were grown from seed in this test plot. she says the stalks are as thick as bamboo to compensate for the sheer height. behold the image that’s haunted me for literally months:
big.
In costa rica theres a single corn stalk thats grown 45 feet. it has it’s own greenhouse!
The real writer experience is standing in the shower and coming up with the most authentic dialogue with perfect phrasing and raw emotion in your head, then stepping out and drying your hair, putting on some clean pajamas and opening a word document to write down all your perfect ideas only to realize everything has evaporated.
I FEEL CALLED OUT
Never lose a perfect shower line again.*
*Remember to erase promptly if you share a bathroom with anyone.
I’ve used these to outline term papers. nothing like a bath to get your brain to finally kick into gear and figure out your damn thesis
One of my favorite tropes is post apocalyptic towns being named after dilapidated signs with missing letters, like Novac (no vacancy) and Eaden (dead end). There’s something inexplicable about it
Citra is REALLY bad at meowing. She sounds like a broken party favor when she remembers to actually meow.
OH MY GOD
Being an orange female kitty is already rare, but you had to go adopt the one in a million who can’t cat properly
She came in a two pack so I had to.
Simcoe (left) and Citra (right), both girls. Both rescues. Both biological litter mates (sisters). Both long term loving projects to teach human trust to.
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